China's Practice and Response Strategies for ASI of Standard-essential Patent Disputes

Abstract

The Anti-suit injunction (ASI) system originated from the common law system. Its function has developed from the initial solution of domestic parallel litigation to the present widely used in coordinating the handling of international parallel litigation jurisdictional conflicts. In recent years, international parallel litigation is frequent in the Standard-essential Patents (SEPs), and the ASI has become an important institutional tool for resolving jurisdictional disputes over SPEs. In particular, the Chinese judiciary has started the practice of "ASI" in SEP disputes by way of behavior preservation, which has aroused widespread concern of the international community. AS Chinese law has not established an ASI system, the current judicial practice mainly refers to the trial experience in the United Kingdom and the United States, and relies on China's behavioral preservation system to make decisions. However, there are many shortcomings in this ruling itself, for example, Chinese judicial organs have paid attention to the lack of sufficient basis for the time sequence of parallel litigations, their arguments in respect of the public interest and international comity are not sufficient, and the ASI is excessively broad in terms of remedies and territorial coverage. Therefore, it is not only necessary but also urgent to establish a perfect legal system of ASI for China's legislation and judicial practice.