Leader IP

Leader Patent & Trademark Firm (“Leader IP Group”), originated from 1985, is engaged in delivering premium IP services to domestic and international companies across the full spectrum of IP matters – including patent mining, patent drafting and prosecution, patent validity action, IP litigation, IP analysis and strategy, IP licensing and negotiation.

The professional team has around 600 members possessing solid technical backgrounds in various technologies such as communication, integrated circuit, automotive industry, machinery Industry, material and chemistry, with 95% holding a master degree or a doctor degree, and a considerable proportion having overseas work/study experience, and also some foreign staffs. The team is clearly aware of the differences between China’s IP practice and those in other countries, familiar with various problems and targets of foreign patent applications entering China, and thus can provide valuable comments on drafting, document amendments and utilization of appropriate procedure to optimize the patent documents, thereby helping foreign clients to improve the efficiency and quality of their patents in China under controlled time and cost.

Leader IP Group’s IP litigation team has rich experience in patent infringement actions before courts and patent invalidation proceedings before CNIPA. More than 200 patent related disputes are handled per year, some of which are well-known and some are awarded “Guiding Case” or “Typical Case” by the Supreme Court and/or Intellectual property Courts, such as the series of patent infringement litigations between Qualcomm and Apple, the series of patent disputes between Ericsson and Huawei, and the series of SEP and NSEP infringement litigations sued by Nokia against Shanghai Huaqin. Due to the accumulated experience of patent-related disputes, Leader IP Group also has outstanding performance on evidence-searching, FTO analysis, and providing foreign companies with client-customized patent infringement analysis, litigation strategies and invalidation defending strategies.

IP practice specialisms

Leader Patent & Trademark Firm (Leader IP Group) focuses on providing high-end professional services for the whole chain of intellectual property for large enterprises at home and abroad, covering patent, trademark, technical secret and other fields, including application, dispute resolution, negotiation, operation, research, training, forum and other services. Leader IP Group has a professional team in many technical fields, which can provide clients with in-depth and professional intellectual property services, especially in the service related to Standard Essential Patents (SEP), the team has a history of 22 years, and the team members have an average of more than 15 years of experience, undertaking standard and patent research topics, publishing books, and making rules. Many of them participated in the drafting of national standards, group standards, place standards, dealt with large-scale SEP license negotiations and disputes, and long-term undertaken SEP patent business of famous enterprises.

Industry strengths

As the standing director unit of China Intellectual Property Society and the standing director unit of All-China Patent Attorneys Association, Leader IP Group has a high status in the industry. Serving many leading enterprises in various industries, famous unicorn enterprises and high-growth start-ups, with a wide range of clients, and large clients account for more than 70%. The team members have high professional quality, more than 95% are master's or doctor's degree, 20% have overseas study and work experience, including international department, domestic department, law firm, data analysis department, procedure management department and other professional departments to cooperate, the staff of each department has rich industry experience and professional qualifications.

Areas of practice

Provide full chain professional services, including domestic application (mining, layout, drafting, granting), application for going abroad (PCT, rewriting, translation, going abroad, granting), invalidation litigation (analysis and evaluation, evidence collection, challenge response), search analysis (search evaluation, project report), trademark and copyright (consultation, registration, invalidation, litigation), document procedures (process monitoring, document management, program services), etc. Excellent performance in high-quality patent agency services, a number of patents were selected as high-quality patent cases, such as the highest amount of litigation compensation of Huawei's patent, its 5G SEP patent was selected as Huawei SEP and combined into a high-value patent package, which has gone through strict evaluation and challenges.

Team experience and scale

With 23 years of steady operation, the team size is in the forefront of the industry, with a total of 600 + personnel including patent attorneys, lawyers, search analysts and process management, and 10 + IT system and AI tool developers. The core members have rich experience, and many of them hold the position of national intellectual property related experts, experts in judicial authentication institutions. The professional background of the team members covers technology, law, examination and other aspects, and they have the ability to deal with complex intellectual property business.

Innovation and Technology

With 10 + IT systems and AI tool developers, the self-developed management system is used for case data storage, time limit monitoring, program services, etc., and combines tools to achieve data analysis, resource sharing and other functions to improve service efficiency and quality, reflecting innovation in technology application, and helping the development of intellectual property business.

Headquartered in Beijing, the Group has branches in many cities in China (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Xi 'an, Shijiazhuang, Qingdao, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Changsha, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Wuhan, etc.) and has representative offices in Seoul, South Korea and Osaka, Japan.