Personal description

Jason Yao is a Partner at Wanhuida Intellectual Property and a Member of the firm’s Management Committee. He is also the managing partner of the firm’s Shenzhen Office and Hong Kong Office. Mr. YAO's practice covers a wide range of intellectual property matters, including litigations on disputes over trademarks, patents, copyrights and trade secrets, investigation and enforcement against trademark counterfeiting, patent infringement and piracy through administrative and criminal actions, licensing, transferring and acquiring trademarks, patents and copyrighted works; handling compliance programs and government investigations on unfair competition and antitrust matters; providing advices on corporate governance, government relation, and crisis management.

He has been highly regarded by clients for his profound knowledge of intellectual property issues, his sense of urgency and responsibility, and his comprehensive approach in dealing with complex legal issues.

Mr. Yao has a unique combination of in-house and outside counsel experience in managing intellectual property portfolios and corporate legal matters for both multinational and Chinese companies. Mr. YAO joined Proctor & Gamble Company as an in-house legal counsel after law school in 1996. He led the brand protection team in China and handled more than a thousand cases in 7 years, some of which were the very first such type of intellectual property cases in some local cities and provinces. After finished his advance education in intellectual property law at Boston University School of Law, Mr. YAO joined Gillette Company as the general counsel for the Greater China region, where he handled the most complicated investigation and enforcement against a counterfeit syndicate and worked closely with the management team in consolidating the joint ventures creatively. After Gillette merged into Procter & Gamble Company, Mr. YAO joined Acushnet Company, the world’s largest golf product manufacturer, where he served as the leading counsel for both intellectual property and general legal matters in the Asia/Pacific region. He successfully coordinated the major US golf manufacturers and put together a comprehensive program for fighting cooperatively and collectively against counterfeit and pirated products in the region and achieved significant results.

Mr. Yao served in the Quality Brands Protection Committee (“QBPC”) of China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment as the various committee vice chairman, the Legal Committee Chairman and the QBPC Vice Chairman for over 10 years and had worked with the legislative authorities, the judicial departments and government enforcement agencies for the improvement of the legislation and enforcement concerning intellectual property rights protection in China.