Research

Haochen Sun

Protecting the Public Interest Through Intellectual Property Law: The Creative Approach of Chinese Judges

Today, Chinese judges play a leading role in the global protection of intellectual property (IP) rights. With China’s judiciary handling more intellectual property lawsuits than any other jurisdiction, their work is prominent not only for its quantity but also for its quality. While acting to safeguard IP owners’ private interests, Chinese judges have also in their rulings effectively protected public interests by…

April 18, 2022

Anne Cheung

自駕車的抉擇

A piece of writing by Anne Cheung published in Ming Pao in November 2023.

November 14, 2023

Taorui Guan

Intellectual Property Legislation Holism in China

This article argues that conventional analysis of China’s intellectual property (IP) system, which focuses narrowly on the adequacy of rights protection, overlooks a fundamental transformation in its legislative philosophy. The author contends that since the promulgation of the Outline of National Intellectual Property Strategy in 2008, China has adopted an approach of “intellectual property legislation holism”. This holistic framework moves beyond mere protection…

December 12, 2023

Kelvin Low and Megumi Hara

Cryptoassets and Property

The concept of property has always been, and remains, a vexed notion. Within civilian systems, the difficulty of incorporating the basic idea of ownership – surely fundamental to any idea of property – within the Gaian and other schema demonstrates the elusiveness of property. Its elusiveness lies in part in the intersection of various distinct ideas within the law of property. In…

December 2, 2024

Le Yu, Xiapu Luo, Jiachi Chen, Hao Zhou, Tao Zhang, Henry Chang, and Hareton K. N. Leung

PPChecker: Towards Accessing the Trustworthiness of Android Apps’ Privacy Policies

Recent years have witnessed a sharp increase of malicious apps that steal users’ personal information. To address users’ concerns about privacy risks and to comply with data protection laws, more and more apps are supplied with privacy policies written in natural language to help users understand an app’s privacy practices. However, little is known whether these privacy policies are trustworthy or not.…

February 24, 2021

Haochen Sun and Peter Wat

Tech Wars and the Conflict of Public Interests

The U.S. government has waged “tech wars” against companies under the banner of national security. But is consumer welfare being sacrificed to win these wars? This Article offers an in-depth study of the emerging conflict between two public interests—consumer welfare and national security—in the context of antitrust law. It considers the ramifications of the patent abuse case, FTC v. Qualcomm, which sheds…

June 18, 2021

Anne Cheung

良緣AI賜？

Writing by Anne Cheung published on Ming Pao in February 2024.

February 29, 2024

Taorui Guan

Cooperative Federalism and Patent Legislation: A Study Comparing China and the United States

How should patent legislative power be allocated between central and local governments in order to construct a patent system conducive to promoting innovation? A comparative analysis of the models of the U.S. and China sheds light on this question. The early American states established their patent systems before the formation of the federal system, but the U.S. Constitution arrogated patent legislative power…

January 7, 2024

Kelvin Low

Cryptoassets and the Renaissance of the Tertium Quid?

The explosion of interest in cryptoassets has revived interest in a curious notion in the law of personal property: the tertium quid or personal property that is neither a thing in possession nor a thing in action. This renaissance, however, has not taken into account historical debates over the same or the law’s experience of the same in respect of patents. Once…

August 20, 2024

Edited by Shyamkrishna Balganesh, Ng-Loy Wee Loon and Haochen Sun

The Cambridge Handbook of Copyright Limitations and Exceptions

While copyright law is ordinarily thought to consist primarily of exclusive rights, the regime’s various exemptions and immunities from liability for copyright infringement form an integral part of its functioning, and serve to balance copyright’s grant of a private benefit to authors/creators with the broader public interest. With contributors from all over the world, this handbook offers a systematic, thorough study of…

April 27, 2021