Alexandra Yang

Practice Areas

ALEXANDRA YANG IS A PREEMINENT IP TRIAL LAWYER FOCUSING HER PRACTICE ON HIGH-PROFILE IP AND ANTITRUST LITIGATION. MS. YANG ADVISES AND WORKS WITH MULTINATIONAL AND HIGH-TECH COMPANIES IN INDUSTRIES SUCH AS TELECOMMUNICATIONS, ELECTRONICS, PHARMACEUTICALS, AND IT, REGARDING GLOBAL IP ISSUES.

Career

Alexandra Yang is one of China’s premier IP litigators. As a recognized consulting expert to the Chinese Supreme Court’s IP Research Center, she has extensive experience in every area of IP law, including patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secrets. Ms. Yang represents many Fortune 500 companies and leading technology companies in their most important matters, such as Apple v. Qualcomm, Apple v. Ericsson, Apple v. IWNCOMM, Apple v. Corephotonics, Apple v. Unwire Planet, Apple v. IPCOM, Intel v. VSLI, Intel v. Yide, Microsoft v. Neodron, Microsoft v. WSOU, LinkedIn v. WSOU, Cisco v. Dunjun, Meta v. Wireless Wonders, IBM v. IVTC, OPPO v. Sharp, VIVO v. Nokia, Xperi v. Samsung, Astellas v Chia Tai-Tianqing, Pfizer v. CNIPA, Eli Lilly v. Watson, New Balance v. Zhou. Many cases led by Ms. Yang are groundbreaking in furthering development of the intellectual property and competition laws in China. She has taken more than thirty cases to trial in the Supreme Court, with four recognized as “Annual Top Cases” by the Supreme Court. She argued the Eli Lilly v. Watson case before the Supreme Court which is the only invention patent case being recognized as a “Guidance Case” by the Supreme Court from 2010 to 2020.

Personal

Ms. Yang has been consistently ranked as a leading IP litigator in Chambers, Legal 500, IAM Patent 1000, WTR, Managing IP, Benchmark litigation for her IP practice in China. The most recent awards include: Band 1, Intellectual Property Litigation, Chambers and Partners (2023), Band 1 Patent Litigator, IAM Patent 1000 (2022), Band 1 trademark Litigator, WTR (2022), leading individual, Legal 500 (2022), Patent Star, Managing IP (2022), litigation Star, Benchmark (2022) and others. IAM recognizes Ms. Yang as one of the “the country’s most formidable patent litigators.” WTR has also recognized Ms. Yang as “the crème de la crème of Chinese IP litigators” who “is heavily involved in multiple high-profile disputes,” and “the teams she develops always create and execute winning legal strategies that yield outstanding results.” Ms. Yang is the only Chinese lawyer ranked in Tier 1 by both IAM for patent litigation and WTR for trademark litigation through 2019 to 2022. The IP litigation team she leads at Fangda has been consecutively named as “Band 1 China IP Litigation Firms” nine years in a row from 2014 to 2022 by Chambers & Partners.

Experience

Represented Apple in Apple v. Qualcomm for disputes against Qualcomm’s standard essential patent (“SEP”) licensing scheme. The civil actions covered a wide range of causes of action, including anti-monopoly action, determination of FRAND terms, and declaratory judgment of non-infringement and in addition defended more than thirty patent infringement cases before more than ten major IP Courts and High Courts and the Supreme People’s Court (“SPC”) in China. The damages claimed by the parties exceed RMB 1.6 billion.

Represents Apple Inc. in iRobot v. Apple patent infringement case. The dispute has been going on for nearly a decade. The allegations are made against Apple SIRI system, a substantially valued artificial intelligent assistant carried by multiple Apple product lines. The first around invalidation decision against iRobot patent was selected as the “Yearly Case” by the CNIPA and the infringement case was dismissed. The second round actions started with Zhizhen requesting the highest damage claim in history in China, i.e. 10 billion RMB, before the Shanghai High Court.

Represents NavInfo Co. Ltd., a market-leading Chinese navigation software and map company, on its successful copyright infringement claim against three Baidu companies found to be using “substantially similar navigation software” without permission. The Beijing Intellectual Property Court awarded NavInfo RMB64.5 million (US$9.8 million) in damages.

Represents Intel defending multiple patent infringement actions filed by VLSI Technology LLC, an NPE and a subsidiary of Fortress Investment. VLSI also tried to obtain unreasonably high license fees by suing Intel for patent infringement in multiple U.S. procedures. As a counter measure, Intel and Apple have filed an antitrust complaint against VLSI in the U.S. This is a novel and creative litigation strategy for large technology companies to counteract NPEs.

Represents Microsoft defending multiple patent infringement actions filed by Neodron. Neodron has also filed patent infringement lawsuits in multiple courts and administrative agencies in the U.S. and Germany as a coercive means to obtain steep license fees. Novel litigation strategies and global unified strategy coordination are employed in this case in order to maximize the interest of the client.

Represents Cisco in the patent infringement action filed by Dunjun before the Suzhou IP Tribunal. Dunjun may be a so-called non-practicing entity (NPE) suing the largest networking company in the world. As NPEs transitioned from an emerging phenomenon to becoming increasingly popular in China, the outcome of this case will likely help shape the landscape of future patent litigation and dispute resolution involving NPEs.

Represents Facebook in patent infringement action filed by Wireless Wonders. The patent at issue relates to VoIP communication technology. Wireless Wonders claimed that Facebook’s core App WhatsApp’s act of manufacturing, selling, and offering to sell certain application programs allegedly using the technology at issue had infringed on Wireless Wonders’ patent, seeking for injunction against Facebook’s star app Whatsapp plus RMB 10 million.

Represents LinkedIn in the patent infringement action filed by WSOU Investment, a globally active patent assertion entity. The patent at issue relates to presence notifications on instant messaging devices. WSOU Investment, LLC claimed that LinkedIn’s certain products allegedly infringed on its patent. This case presents itself with important legal issues including proper infringement standards in the communication and social networking industry. Also notably in this case, WSOU may be a so-called non-practicing entity (NPE) suing one of the largest networking companies. As NPEs transitioned from an emerging phenomenon to becoming increasingly popular in China, the outcome of this case will likely help shape the landscape of future patent litigation and dispute resolution involving NPEs.

Represents Apple Inc. in the accused patent infringement case filed by Xidian (IWNCOMM) before the Shaanxi High Court, where IWNCOMM demanded for excessive royalties. As part of its defense, Apple brought the FRAND/SEP action and anti-monopoly action with the Beijing IP Court against Xidian, which is the second case in China, following Huawei v. InterDigital case, brought by the standard implementers against the standard essential patent (SEP) holder, alleging anti-monopoly violation and demanding FRAND royalties. Later, realizing its lack of basis in pending actions, IWNCOMM asserted a trade secret infringement action as retaliation. Many important legal issues are involved in the actions against IWNCOMM, including the analysis of essentiality of the declared standard essential patent, test of patent exhaustion, determination of excessive and discriminatory royalties, and the implied license issue.

Represented Meizu defending the AML and FRAND lawsuit initiated by Qualcomm, in which Qualcomm claimed USD 65 million damages and requested the court to determine a FRAND rate for its wireless telecommunications SEPs. The civil actions include the first declaratory judgment for non-infringement action in AML in China. Creative strategies were designed and implemented which lead to a favorable settlement for the client.

Represented Watson in Eli Lilly v. Watson Pharmaceuticals patent infringement case successfully reversing the first instance judgment. This case was selected as the first “Model IP Case” of the SPC, and the trial was broadcasted nationwide on the International IP Day of April 26, 2014. The SPC issued a second instance judgment in favor of Watson in 2017 where the court found Watson did not practice the patent-at-issue. Both injunction and RMB 151 million damages awarded by the first instance court were reversed. The case was selected as one of the annual “TOP 10 IP Cases” of the SPC.

Represented Astellas, Japan’s second largest pharmaceutical company, in patent infringement cases before six major IP Courts and High Courts in China, seeking for damages in excess of RMB 180 million, against dozens of Chinese generic drug companies. Enzalutamide, protected by the asserted patent, is one of the top 10 anti-tumor drugs in the world, with global sales exceeding USD 2.5 billion in 2018. The highlights in this case include: oppositions were creatively filed to suspend CFDA’s review of drug applications filed by the accused infringers, and interim measures were successfully exploited in civil litigation to collect evidence.

Represented Apple in handling over one hundred copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and unfair competition disputes related to Apple App Store in the past ten years. The courts involved in these cases include the SPC, the Beijing High Court, the Shanghai High Court, the IP Courts in Beijing and Shanghai, and the Taiwan Intellectual Property Court.

Represented Ralph Lauren Corporation against various trademark squatters and infringers in over a hundred litigation proceedings, including trademark infringement lawsuits, copyright infringement lawsuits, unfair competition lawsuits and administrative litigation proceedings before multiple forums including Shanghai IP Court, Beijing IP Court, and Suzhou IP Court.

Education