On Monday 26^th June 2023, Hong Kong-based legal magazine China Business Law Journal (CBLJ) releases the winners of its “China Business Law Awards 2023”. The awards are designed to showcase the diversity of talent in the legal services market while offering assistance to in-house readers as they consider and select their legal advisers.

Wanhuida Intellectual Property is ranked in the categories of Intellectual Property (Trademark) PRC Firms and Intellectual Property (Patent) PRC Firms.

According to CBLJ, Wanhuida is the first choice for IP protection in China of many pharmaceutical heavyweights. In two separate cases, it helped Sanhome Pharmaceutical in defending the validity of its patents of medical uses for a chiral drug in administrative litigation and defeated two patent infringers in two instances of court proceedings, where the firm secured favourable court decisions, cessation and damages of RMB800,000.

In addition, the firm secured favourable administrative decisions from the Nanjing IP Office for Bayer in a patent administrative enforcement action against two Chinese infringers offering for sale the client’s patented drug, rivaroxaban, at exhibitions and websites. The Supreme People’s Court used this case to clarify several complex issues, such as whether offering for sale hinges on the availability of the product.

China Business Law Awards are based on nominations and comments received mostly from China-focused corporate counsel, senior managers and legal professionals around the world. The CBLJ research team consulted widely with law firm clients by conducting surveys to ascertain the level of their satisfaction with the services provided by the relevant firm. To determine the winners, each firm’s landmark deals, cases and other notable achievements in the past year were also evaluated carefully in combination with the nominations and comments they received.

Wanhuida has been ranked in the China Business Law Awards eleven years in a row.