On June 29, 2023, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) released the amended Provisions on Prohibiting the Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights to Exclude or Restrict Competition. These provisions were made in accordance with the Anti-Monopoly Law and came into force on August 1, 2023.
According to the SAMR, anti-monopoly and IP protection share the same goal of encouraging competition and innovation, improving the economy and protecting the interests of consumers and the public. When businesses use their IP rights, they must follow the laws and regulations and should not misuse these rights to prevent or limit competition.

IP rights can be abused to limit competition. However, he explained this can only happen if the business operator engage in the following acts:
- Reaching monopoly agreements;
- Licensing IP rights or selling products containing IP rights at an unfairly high price;
- Refusing, without justification, to license other business operators to use IP rights under reasonable conditions;
- Imposing, without justifications, restrictions on transactions;
- Conducting, without justification, tie-in sales in violation of the trading practices or consumption habits or the function of commodities;
- Imposing, without justifications, unreasonable trading conditions in grant-backs, cross-licensing, challenging validity of IP rights, etc.;
- Applying, without justification, different treatment on other business operators in the condition the same as others in transactions;
- Concentration of business operators without reporting to and approval from the SAMR;
- Excluding or restricting competition by means of a patent pool; and
- Relying upon formulating and implementing standards to reach monopoly agreements.
The provisions aim to strike a balance between protecting IP and maintaining fair competition by addressing complex and practical anti-monopoly issues related to IP, involving the rights holders, their business counterparts and public interest. The provisions also aim to encourage innovation while promoting fair competition.