The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) on February 23 confirmed companies’ subsidiaries as ineligible to be respondents to answer petitions in administrative patent cases, in the country’s top IP authority’s reply to the Zhejiang Intellectual Property Administration published on its official website.

The CNIPA identifies the Civil Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China as the governing law of all administrative patent cases. As a procedural law, the Civil Procedure Law is supposed to be compatible with the Civil Code of the Pepople’s Republic of China as a substantive law, which became effective on January 1, 2021.

There are provisions for the rights and obligations of legal persons and unincorporated associations in the Civil Code. Companies’ subsidiaries are not classified as unincorporated associations and are held responsible for civil liability in two manners. With Article 14 of the Company Law of the People’s Republic of China taken into consideration as well, companies’ subsidiaries are ineligible to function as legal persons to answer petitions in administrative patent cases.

The full text is available here.