Four attorneys from Lifang & Partners participated in the Fifth Annual Sino-U.S. Moot Court of Intellectual Property on June 20th, 2012 at the China Intellectual Property Training Center in Beijing. Lifang was the corporate sponsor.

The moot court event takes a common set of facts and presents them in a litigation simulation. The simulation is designed to give each country the opportunity to demonstrate its legal system’s handling of the same case. In previous years, the subject has been patent, trademark and copyright infringement.

This year’s trial simulation is based on a patent infringement case. Although the judicial panel in the Chinese trial found in favor of the plaintiff and the jury in the American trial also decided for the plaintiff, it is a significant and first-hand demonstration about differences between Chinese and U.S. intellectual property law.

The Fifth Sino-U.S. Moot Court was attended by numerous Chinese and U.S. legal officials and scholars, including judges of the IPR Tribunals of Beijing courts and Chief Judge James F. Holderman, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, officials from China’s State Intellectual Property Training Center and Beijing Intellectual Property Office, SIPO patent examiners, professors from Peking University Institute for International Intellectual Property, Tsinghua University Law School and John Marshall Law School, and representatives from industries.