China’s Expansive Jurisdictional Strategy Transforms Global Patent Litigation Landscape

In 2020, Chinese courts initiated an unprecedented wave of anti-suit injunctions over a brief five-month period. These injunctions primarily targeted major foreign telecommunications technology patent holders, many of them European, effectively barring them from pursuing related patent litigation in foreign jurisdictions. This assertive judicial action marked a significant departure from prior practice and drew international attention.

In response, the European Union filed a request for consultations at the World Trade Organization in 2022, alleging that China’s issuance of anti-suit injunctions violated the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Although the WTO panel initially rejected key claims from the EU, a subsequent WTO arbitration panel reversed that decision, concluding that China’s anti-suit injunctions were inconsistent with its TRIPS obligations. Following this ruling, China announced the withdrawal of its anti-suit injunction policy. Nonetheless, the European Commission emphasized ongoing vigilance, noting the policy’s unwritten nature and the need to monitor China’s compliance closely.

A forthcoming scholarly article argues that these anti-suit injunctions represent both the genesis and a critical component of China’s broader strategy of jurisdictional maximalism. This strategy involves the aggressive expansion of Chinese courts’ control over litigation implicating China’s overseas interests. It reflects a deliberate effort to advance the state’s foreign-related rule of law (FROL) policy and constitutes a significant development in extraterritorial jurisdiction that is poised to reshape the global transnational litigation landscape.

China’s promotion of the FROL policy began in 2019, coinciding with sanctions and legal challenges faced by Chinese technology giants such as Huawei and ZTE in the United States. The policy fundamentally seeks to counteract what China perceives as U.S. extraterritorial overreach, often described in Chinese discourse as “U.S. long-arm jurisdiction,” while defending China’s legitimate overseas interests.

Simultaneously, Chinese firms encountered vulnerabilities in Europe, highlighted by the landmark Unwired Planet v. Huawei case in the United Kingdom. The U.K. court’s ruling allowed a domestic patent infringement action to set global royalty licensing terms. This precedent exposed Huawei and ZTE to foreign patent litigation in the U.K., forcing them to either accept global license terms dictated by U.K. courts or face injunctions excluding their products from the U.K. market. The U.K. Supreme Court upheld these jurisdictional rulings in 2020, leaving Chinese firms with a stark choice between accepting what they viewed as exploitative licensing or losing access to a key foreign market. This transnational patent litigation became the initial arena where China’s jurisdictional assertiveness took tangible form.

China’s jurisdictional maximalism first manifested through the issuance of anti-suit injunctions, despite Chinese law traditionally permitting parallel proceedings. In 2020, Justice Luo Dongchuan, then President of the Supreme People’s Court’s Intellectual Property Court, publicly advocated for developing anti-suit injunctions within China’s legal system to counter foreign legal challenges. Three months later, the Supreme People’s Court issued China’s first anti-suit injunction in Huawei v. Conversant, preventing enforcement of a German injunction against Huawei.

Subsequent Chinese court actions went further. At the ex parte request of Chinese firms seeking determinations of global royalty rates, courts issued global anti-suit injunctions prohibiting foreign patent owners from continuing or initiating related patent litigation abroad. These orders partially relied on a lis pendens-like rationale, asserting that because the Chinese court was first seized of the dispute, restraining foreign actions was analogous to a lis pendens stay or dismissal.

Facing resistance from foreign jurisdictions, Chinese courts quickly adapted by broadening both personal and subject matter jurisdiction over global patent litigation to support domestic firms. They developed an “appropriate connection” rule to overcome objections that foreign parties lacked sufficient contacts with China. Under this rule, Chinese courts can assert personal jurisdiction based on minimal contacts, such as a single negotiation in China or anticipated future contract performance there. After expanding jurisdictional authority, Chinese courts retreated from relying on lis pendens logic and reaffirmed that Chinese law permits parallel proceedings, under which foreign litigation does not affect Chinese cases.

China’s jurisdictional maximalism carries significant implications for transnational litigation. First, non-Chinese parties have begun strategically utilizing this jurisdictional framework. For example, Samsung petitioned the Wuhan Court to determine global royalty rates for Ericsson’s patents and sought a global anti-suit injunction barring Ericsson from pursuing foreign patent litigation. Samsung also requested an anti-anti-enforcement injunction preventing Ericsson from seeking foreign court injunctions against Samsung’s enforcement of the Chinese anti-suit injunction. The Wuhan Court granted these requests, prompting the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, where related disputes were pending, to issue an anti-anti-suit injunction to preserve its jurisdiction.

Second, the jurisdictional maximalism that originated in patent litigation has expanded to encompass all foreign-related civil and commercial cases. In 2023, China’s national legislature enacted major amendments significantly broadening courts’ subject matter jurisdiction over such cases. Framed by the Ministry of Justice to advance the FROL policy, these amendments addressed gaps in existing jurisdictional rules amid the growing overseas presence of Chinese enterprises and citizens. The 2023 reforms also codified the “appropriate connection” rule for personal jurisdiction over non-domiciled parties, formalizing a principle first developed in transnational patent litigation.

Finally, China’s assertive jurisdictional posture is likely to reshape transnational litigation by increasing parallel proceedings, extending the practical reach of Chinese law, and generating more frequent conflicts over judgment recognition. The expansive jurisdictional rules and strict application of forum non conveniens may compel foreign parties to litigate related disputes simultaneously in Chinese and foreign courts. This expansion is particularly consequential given Chinese courts’ tendency to apply Chinese law even in cases with substantial foreign elements. Parallel litigation may also produce competing judgments, as foreign judgments are generally not recognized in China absent treaties, reciprocity, or other limited bases.

China’s jurisdictional maximalism has already impacted foreign legal systems, including that of the United States, and may ultimately reset the global jurisdictional order in transnational litigation. In a notable development unrelated to China, a U.S. district court recently enjoined litigation of U.S. patents in Germany, signaling a potential shift in judicial approaches. This evolving landscape suggests that U.S. courts may need to reconsider their traditional litigation isolationism and adopt more proactive strategies in response to these jurisdictional challenges.