Wen Zou

Practice Areas

MS. ZOU SPECIALIZES IN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LITIGATION AND ARBITRATION, CRIMINAL AND CIVIL PROTECTION OF TRADE SECRETS, OVERSEAS LITIGATION MANAGEMENT, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY COMPLIANCE AND CRIMINAL RISK MANAGEMENT.

Ms. Zou is experienced in handling highly adversarial and complex cases. Since practicing laws as a lawyer, Ms. Zou has provided legal services to multinational companies, internet giants and listed companies including LyondellBasell, Bilibili and Deren on criminal and civil matters involving trade secrets protection, achieving positive results by obtaining preliminary injunctions, conviction of infringers and high compensation. Ms. Zou has represented leading companies in the field of semiconductor, medical device, and communications industry, including NICHIA, EDAM, HC SemiTek and Ericson, in numerous patent litigations between competing companies as well as SEP litigations. Ms. Zou has contributed to overseas litigation management for clients and represented them in the parallel litigations in China. Additionally, Ms. Zou has assisted numerous multinational and domestic clients, including SHEIN, XIAOGUANCHA and Anker, in protecting their core trademarks, domain names and other IP rights.

Ms. Zou was listed in the Chambers Greater China Region Intellectual Property Litigation category and was honored by LEGALBAND as one of the Top 15 Female Lawyers in China, one of the Top 15 Economic Crimes Lawyers in China, and received a Special Recommendation for Intellectual Property Litigation. Additionally, she was acknowledged by China Business Law Journal as one of The A-List Elite Lawyers.

Career

Ms. Zou joined Fangda as a partner in 2022. Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Zou had practiced law for 16 years with deep expertise in the field of criminal and IP disputes. Ms. Zou obtained her practice license in June, 2019 in Shenzhen.

Professional Memberships

Vice President, Biomedical Intellectual Property Branch, Guangdong Precision Medicine Application Association

Expert, Trade Secret Protection Base Expert Group of Nanshan District, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province

Industry Expert in the field of Trade Secret, Zhejiang Province Trade Secret Expert Group

Expert, Domain Name Dispute Resolution Expert Group of Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre

External Expert, Shenzhen Market Supervision and Administration Bureau

Expert, Shenzhen Fair Competition Review and Competition Law Expert Group

Expert, China (Shenzhen) Intellectual Property Protection Center Overseas Rights Protection Expert Group

Expert, Capital Intellectual Property Services Association Trade Secret Committee

External Expert, Shenzhen Brand Protection and Development Association

Publications

Research Report

A Legal Research Report on Cases of Trade Secret Disputes Arising from Employee Turnover（2019-2021），Wen ZOU & LexisNexis, May 2022;

A Legal Research Report on Cases of Trade Secret Disputes Arising from Employee Turnover（2015-2018），Wen ZOU & LexisNexis, May 2019.

Essays & Articles

Frontier Observation of Trade Secrets: The Secrets in Big Data (Wen ZOU, Xueqing LIU), Legal Person, July 4, 2022;

Trade Secrets 2022 (2nd Edition) (Jerry XIA, Ning DONG, Wen ZOU), Law Business Research Ltd, April 2022;

Practical Analysis of Punitive Damages in Trade Secret Infringement Cases (Wen ZOU, Xueqing LIU), IP LEAD, February 2022;

Interpretation of Shenzhen Special Economic Zone’s Anti-Unfair Competition Regulations (Draft) from the Perspective of Trade Secrets Practice (Wen ZOU, Xueqing LIU), LexisNexis, December 2021;

The Impact of Amended Trade Secrets Law in 2020 (Wen ZOU, Wenmin XIAO), Wolters Kluwer, February 2021;

Brief Analysis of Highlights of Recent Amendment of Criminal Part and Judicial Interpretation of Trade Secret Law from the Perspective of Practice (Wen ZOU, Yanyan DENG, IP LEAD, October 22, 2020;

Analysis on the Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Civil Cases Concerning Trade Secret Infringement Disputes (Draft for Comments) (Wen ZOU, Xueqing LIU), IP LEAD, June 17, 2020;

Implications of the US-China Phase One Trade Deal on Trade Secret Enforcement (Jerry XIA, Wen ZOU, Jing HE), LEGALBAND, March 2020；

The New Situation and New Problems of Trade Secret Protection (Wen ZOU), LexisNexis, January 2020；

Probing into the Handling of IP Cases Involving Civil and Criminal Matters (Wen ZOU, Jiaxin ZHANG), IP LEAD, October 2019;

China’s New Legislative Efforts to Improve Protection of Trade Secrets (Wen ZOU), LEXOLOGY, September 2019；

Standard for Determination of Client List as Trade Secrets and Suggestions (Wen ZOU, Anbi XU), IP LEAD, December 2018;

The Connections between Trade Secrets and Patents (Wen ZOU, Yue LIU), IP LEAD, October 2018;

Comprehensive Introduction on the Jurisdiction over Trade Secret Cases from Three Perspectives (Wen ZOU, Yuan ZHENG), IP LEAD, January 2018.

Experience

Trade Secret:

-Litigation

-Represented a new energy company in the criminal litigation relating to theft of trade secrets by an employee of its competitor, which was selected as one of the Top 10 Typical Intellectual Property Trial Cases in Guangdong Province in 2020, The Major Events of Trade Secret Protection in Guangdong Province, and Typical Cases of Trade Secrets Protection of Guangdong Courts.

-Represented LyondellBasell in the internal investigation and continued civil litigation concerning its former employee’s misappropriation of trade secrets, successfully recovered the mobile storage devices with trade secrets during the investigation, and assisted the company in obtaining an injunction order from the court, prohibiting the former employee from using trade secrets during the litigation process.

-Represented a multinational company in a preliminary investigation against a former employee for misappropriating trade secrets in China, successfully recovered the mobile storage devices with the company’s trade secrets from its former employee.

-Represented a multinational company in building a criminal case and initiating criminal investigations concerning the misappropriation of trade secrets by its business competitor and former employees in China.

-Represented a leading internet company in a trade secret litigation involving software source code, achieving positive results within two months.

Compliance and Consultation

-Represented a semiconductor manufacturer in establishing its trade secrets compliance system.

-Represented a company in the field of medical environment in setting up its trade secret protection system and non-competition management system.

-Represented Gemdale Corporation in setting up its comprehensive intellectual property management system, including trade secret protection system.

-Represented a high-tech company in the visual field in China during its Pre-IPO stage in setting up its trade secrets management system to manage the potential risks of misappropriating third parties’ trade secrets.

-Represented a domestic manufacturing company during its Pre-IPO stage in setting up its trade secrets management system to manage the potential risks of misappropriating third parties’ trade secrets, and providing strategy for handling the potential IP litigations. The company had made a successful IPO.

Patent Litigation and Patent Strategy:

-Represented NICHIA in a series of patent litigations against Taiwan Everlight Electronics in the courts and the Patent Reexamination Board in China.

-Represented HC SemiTek, a leading domestic LED chip company, in the patent battles against Sanan, and retained by HC SemiTek to advise on trade secrets and non-competition issues.

-Represented a leading domestic company in the acoustics field in the patent battles against its competitors.

-Represented a leading medical device company in the patent battles against its competitors, and achieved positive results.

-Represented a medical device company in the patent battles against its competitor during its Pre-IPO stage, achieving positive results.

-Represented Ericson in the SEP litigation against a domestic cell phone manufacturer.

Parrallel Litigation and Overseas Litigation Management:

-Represented a listed company in the lithium battery industry in parallel litigations including patent and trade secret litigations against its US competitors in three countries, including handling the litigations in China and overseas litigation management.

-Represented a high-tech company in parallel litigation in the US and China during its IPO process in the US, including handling the litigations in China and overseas litigation management.

-Represented the defendant in the Chinese litigation, part of the parallel litigations including trade secret infringement and patent ownership disputes over an innovative pharmaceutical product in China and the US. Successfully supported related litigation in the US, resulting in the plaintiff withdrawing lawsuits in both countries.

-Represented the subsidiary corporations of a Hong Kong-listed company in trade secret parallel litigations across Hong Kong and mainland China.

-Represented a listed company in the smart terminal components industry to get settlement of a US patent case.

Copyright, Trademark and Unfair Competition Litigation:

-Represented a famous fashion e-commerce company SHEIN in copyright protection matters.

-Represented the renowned Chinese tea brand “XIAOGUANCHA” in winning trademark administrative and civil litigations, preserving the distinctiveness of its trademarks.

-Represented a geotechnical engineering survey company in winning a trademark and unfair competition case.

-Represented a leading internet company in winning a series of unfair competition cases. One of these cases was selected by the Guangzhou IP Court as One of the Top 10 Typical Cases of Serving and Protecting Science and Technology Innovation in 2022, while another was selected by Sichuan High People’s Court as One of the Annual Representative 10 IP Protection Cases in 2022.

Intellectual Property Compliance and Criminal Risk Management:

-Represented an internet derivative software company in its key products compliance project, including accessing the criminal, civil and administrative risks relating to its products, studying applicable policies and advising on the actions for improvement.

-Represented a leading internet company in its criminal compliance project for its products.

-Represented an internet company in its criminal compliance project for data protection.

-Represented a state-owned financial company in consultation project for concerned criminal matters.

Education