By Qinghong Xu and Patrick Terroir

While acknowledgement of intellectual property rights in China can be traced back as far as the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), the first patent-specific law in China was enacted in 1889, towards the end of the Qing Dynasty. Modern Chinese patent law, however, began with the issuance of the Provisional Regulations on the Protection of Invention Rights and Patent Rights in 1950, which provided rewards to inventors but left ownership of intellectual property in the hands of the State. The onset of the Cultural Revolution in the mid-1960’s, however, brought an end to even this modest recognition of intellectual property.