China’s Reshaping of its Integrated Circuit Layout‑Design Protection Regime
Published 10 August 2026
Xia Yu
On 3 August 2026, the State Council of the People’s Republic of China promulgated the revised Regulations on the Protection of Integrated Circuit Layout Designs (“Regulations”), effective 15 October 2026. On the same day, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (“CNIPA”) published the Draft Amendments to the Implementing Rules of the Regulations on the Protection of Integrated Circuit Layout Designs (Exposure Draft) (“Draft Implementing Rules”) and the Draft Amendments to the Guidelines for Examination and Enforcement of Integrated Circuit Layout Designs (Exposure Draft) (“Draft Guidelines”) to solicit public comments. In terms of the regulatory hierarchy, the three components form a comprehensive protection system for integrated circuit layout designs: the Regulations establish the substantive institutions and basic procedures; the Draft Implementing Rules translate the procedural provisions into actionable filing procedures; and the Draft Guidelines provide examiners and enforcement officers with uniform examination standards and enforcement criteria. The revised protection system for integrated circuit layout designs has achieved notable improvements in the scope of protectable subject matter, procedural clarity, and enforcement strength, and will have a significant impact on the IP portfolio management, enforcement strategies, and compliance of integrated circuit design enterprises both domestically and internationally.
Core Amendments to the Regulations
The revised Regulations consist of 6 chapters and 54 articles. The key amendments fall into three main areas:
1. Improvement of Filing and Examination Procedures: First, the Regulations explicitly state that the exclusive right in a layout-design arises upon registration with the CNIPA, and that unregistered layout-designs are not protected under the Regulations. A strict time window is also imposed: if an application for registration is not filed within two years from the date of first commercial exploitation anywhere in the world, the CNIPA will no longer register the layout-design. Second, the Regulations require that an application for registration must include an application form, a copy or drawing of the layout-design, and a statement of originality. The statement of originality must specify the original design areas, design highlights, and corresponding functions of the layout-design. The copy or drawing submitted must contain the necessary information to clearly show the original parts of the layout-design. Third, the Regulations emphasize that the application for registration and the exercise of the exclusive right shall comply with the principle of good faith; the application must be based on genuine creative activity and shall not involve fraud. Fourth, the Regulations provide for restoration of rights: if a right is lost due to force majeure, the applicant may request restoration within two months from the removal of the obstacle and within two years from the expiry of the time limit; if the delay is due to other legitimate reasons, the request may be filed within two months from receipt of the notice. However, the time limits set out in Articles 17 (term of protection) and 26 (two-year filing period from first commercial exploitation) are not subject to restoration.
2. Strengthening of Exclusive Right Protection:
1) Punitive damages: For willful infringement of the exclusive right in a layout-design that is serious in nature, punitive damages may be awarded at a multiple of between one and five times the amount determined based on actual loss or infringer’s profit and shall also include reasonable expenses incurred by the right holder to stop the infringement.
2) Administrative enforcement powers: When handling infringement disputes, the CNIPA may, if it finds infringement established, order the infringer to immediately stop the infringement and may seize and destroy the infringing products or articles.
3) Procedure for cancellation upon request: Any person who discovers that a registration does not comply with the Regulations may request the CNIPA to cancel the registration. The grounds for cancellation are limited to non-compliance with Article 3(1)(i), (ii), or Articles 4, 6, 7, 17, 20, 23, 24, or 26 of the Regulations. If a registration is cancelled, the exclusive right in the layout-design is deemed never to have existed.
4) Defense of good-faith use: A person who, at the time of acquiring an integrated circuit containing a protected layout-design or an article containing such an integrated circuit, does not know and has no reasonable grounds to know that it contains an unlawfully copied layout-design, and who puts it into commercial exploitation, shall not be deemed to infringe. After receiving clear notice that it contains an unlawfully copied layout-design, such person may continue to commercially exploit existing stock or prior orders but must pay a reasonable fee to the right holder.
3. Promotion of Exploitation of Layout-Designs: First, the Regulations provide rules for the exercise of jointly owned exclusive rights. Where the co-owners have an agreement, it shall prevail; in the absence of agreement, any co-owner may individually use the layout-design or grant a non-exclusive license to others, and the royalties received shall be distributed among the co-owners. The exercise of jointly owned exclusive rights otherwise requires the consent of all co-owners. Second, the Regulations provide for remuneration for service creations. Where a layout-design is created under the auspices of a legal person or an unincorporated organization, that entity shall, in accordance with the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Promoting the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements and relevant state provisions, give reasonable rewards and remuneration to eligible personnel. Third, the Regulations extend the scope of protectable subject matter. Although the definition of “integrated circuit” in Article 3 still refers to “semiconductor material as the substrate”, a new provision states: “Layout‑designs of integrated circuits that integrate optical, quantum or other functions may be protected in accordance with the provisions of these Regulations.”
Key Amendments in the Draft Implementing Rules
The Draft Implementing Rules provide clear compliance guidance in terms of procedural refinement and practical operability, covering the following three main areas:
1. Streamlining of Registration Applications and Related Procedures: Regarding filing formalities, electronic form is recognized as equivalent to written form, and rules on electronic submission and service are supplemented. Regarding the requirements for application documents, the draft specifies that copies or drawings must include a general drawing and all layer drawings, which must be sequentially numbered with a table of contents indicating each layer’s name; the statement of originality must specify the original parts and, if there are multiple, list them in order and state the reasons for originality for each; the original parts must include modular areas capable of realizing independent functions. For samples, an application that has already been commercially exploited must submit at least four integrated circuit samples, which must be storable in a desiccator for at least ten years. For confidential information, applications not yet commercially exploited may contain confidential information up to 50% of the total area, and the paper copies or drawings containing such information must be placed in a separate confidential envelope and may not be accessed or copied except for judicial or administrative proceedings where state authorities are performing their statutory duties. The draft also establishes a mechanism for restoration of rights, allowing requests within prescribed time limits in cases of force majeure or other legitimate reasons. In addition, a new chapter on “Formalities for the Exercise of Exclusive Rights” is added, systematically regulating assignment registration, licensing recordal, and pledge registration.
2. Improvement of Review and Cancellation Procedures: The draft consolidates the review and cancellation authority with the CNIPA. For review proceedings, it clarifies the circumstances under which a review request will not be accepted and specifies that the examination procedure shall continue after a decision to revoke the original rejection. For cancellation proceedings, it refines the rules on filing, acceptance, and withdrawal: the requester must supplement grounds or evidence within one month from the date of filing, and late submissions may be disregarded; the right holder may only abandon, not add or modify, the original parts claimed in the statement of originality during the cancellation proceedings; oral hearing procedures are introduced, and the specified time limits are not extendable.
3. Strengthening Protection and Promoting Exploitation: The draft clarifies that the CNIPA may, upon request, handle administrative adjudication of infringement disputes and may mediate on the amount of compensation. In infringement proceedings, the requester must specify the original part(s) in the statement of originality that it relies upon as the basis for its claim, and the CNIPA shall determine the scope of adjudication accordingly. Regarding suspension of administrative adjudication proceedings, a new provision allows the CNIPA not to suspend if the grounds for suspension are manifestly unfounded. For non-voluntary licenses, the draft details the procedures for request, acceptance, review, and decision. Where a Chinese entity assigns or licenses the exclusive right to a foreign party, it must produce the technology export license or technology export contract registration certificate issued by the competent commerce authority of the State Council.
Key Amendments in the Draft Guidelines
The Draft Guidelines comprehensively revise the existing provisional guidelines, covering four parts: registration examination, review and cancellation, administrative adjudication, and licensing and pledge. For registration examination, the draft divides the examination process into acceptance and examination, and further divides examination into examination of obvious substantive defects and examination of formalities. In terms of examination standards, it provides for the handling of applications that violate the principle of good faith – the following conduct generally does not meet the good faith requirement: (1) multiple applications with clearly identical layout-design content; (2) clearly fabricated or obviously copied existing layout-designs; (3) multiple applications filed without genuine creative activity and without reasonable explanation; (4) submission of false evidence in proceedings. It clarifies the examination of protectable subject matter, stating that a copy or drawing that clearly shows characteristics of a circuit board or that does not include a layer with active elements does not qualify as a protectable layout-design. It also refines the requirements for submitting copies or drawings and the drafting of statements of originality. For formalities examination, it adds examination of requests for withdrawal of applications, improves the examination of requests for abandonment of exclusive rights, adds examination of requests for extension of time limits, and supplements the requirements for supporting documents in changes to bibliographic data.
For review and cancellation, the draft improves both ex officio and request-based initiation of cancellation proceedings. It clarifies that in cancellation proceedings, amendments to the statement of originality are limited to abandoning one or more claimed original parts; no addition or change is generally permitted. It adds a recusal system for examiners who participated in the original examination. It adds ex officio examination of violations of the good-faith principle. It refines the rules for handling subsequent cancellation requests against the same layout-design exclusive right. It also adds provisions on suspension of review proceedings and on the standing of requesters in cancellation proceedings.
For administrative adjudication, the draft makes adaptive changes in line with the Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China and the amended Regulations, replacing “other organizations” with “unincorporated organizations”, and uniformly renaming “administrative enforcement” as “administrative adjudication”, “enforcement officers” as “case-handling officers”, and the “Integrated Circuit Layout-Design Administrative Enforcement Committee” as the “Intellectual Property Administrative Adjudication Committee”. On substantive aspects, it refines the way original parts are asserted in infringement cases, provides for online oral hearings, allows the collegial panel to organize the parties to negotiate the appointment of experts and the allocation of expert fees, adds circumstances in which suspension may be refused, and introduces the “first adjudicate and dismiss, then file anew” mechanism. The infringement determination adopts a “contact plus substantial similarity” test throughout.
For licensing and pledge, regarding license recordal, the draft requires that recordal be made within three months from the effective date of the license agreement; it also requires that a Chinese party assigning or licensing to a foreign party must produce the technology export license or registration certificate from the commerce authority. Regarding pledge registration, it improves the rules for filling in debt information in the case of a maximum pledge, explicitly requires both parties to the pledge to sign and confirm on the copy of the principal debt contract, and provides that a layout-design already subject to cancellation proceedings will not be accepted for pledge registration unless the parties, after being informed, declare their consent to proceed. For filing methods, it promotes full online processing.
Analysis of Key Institutional Features
1. The Statement of Originality: A “Claim Set” for Layout-Designs
The statement of originality is the most significant innovation of this revision. This mechanism operates across four stages: application (as a mandatory document), examination/cancellation (where original parts may be abandoned), scope definition (the copy/drawing prevails, with the statement used for interpretation), and infringement adjudication (where the scope is determined by the original parts asserted by the requester). In effect, it functions much like a patent claim set. The advantage is the ex ante certainty of scope—competitors can assess design‑around options from the date of registration publication, and right holders no longer need to reconstruct originality arguments after the fact. However, this shifts risk to the applicant: the quality of the statement will determine the stability and boundary of the right—over‑claiming invites cancellation, under‑claiming self‑limits. “How to draft a statement of originality” will become a core skill in layout‑design prosecution and may also give rise to new professional liability disputes. In cancellation proceedings, the mandatory “reduce only, no addition” rule—amendments limited to abandoning claimed parts, with no addition or change in principle—closes the grey space of tactical amendments during disputes, forcing chip enterprises to achieve precision in both the statement and the circled areas from the outset.
2. Punitive Damages: Entering the “Strong Protection” Regime
The introduction of punitive damages (between one and five times the base amount) places Chinese layout‑design protection in the same “strong protection” category as patents and trademarks. The administrative power to seize and destroy infringing products provides a swift remedy outside the judicial route. Notably, the draft Regulations published for comment in 2024 had included statutory damages (up to RMB 5 million) and pre‑suit evidence preservation, but these were not adopted in the final text. This may reflect the legislator’s caution about granting overly strong remedies to a registration‑based right that issues without substantive examination. It also means that proof of damages will depend on the rules of evidence; right holders should retain pricing and sales records from commercial exploitation and licensing to support the “multiple of license fees” approach.
3. Good Faith and Request‑Based Cancellation: Full‑Cycle Coverage
Articles 9 and 20 of the Regulations, together with the list of bad‑faith scenarios and ex officio examination provisions in the Draft Guidelines, form a network to combat “layout‑design laundering”. The introduction of a request‑based cancellation procedure has even broader significance. Previously, cancellation could only be initiated ex officio, and the administration, facing a massive volume of registrations, was unable to actively weed out low‑quality ones. Now, with any person able to request cancellation and the procedure designed as a quasi‑invalidation proceeding, the legal stability of layout‑design registrations will for the first time be tested by the market. Cancellation attacks between competitors may replace some infringement litigation as a new battleground in industrial competition. For a competitor’s prior registration, a cancellation request is a low‑cost defensive weapon; for one’s own core layout‑design, the application file must be prepared to a standard that can withstand cancellation scrutiny.
4. Significant Adjustment to the Term of Protection
The Regulations provide a term of protection of 10 years, calculated from the date of application or from the date of first commercial exploitation anywhere in the world, whichever is earlier. It also states that “whether or not registered or commercially exploited, a layout‑design shall no longer be protected under these Regulations 15 years after its date of creation”. This effectively compresses the maximum possible term: previously, a right holder could file at any time within 15 years of creation and obtain 10 years of protection (up to a total of 25 years); under the new rule, the latest possible protection ends 15 years after creation. This poses a significant risk for layout‑designs created years ago but not yet filed—right holders must reassess the remaining protection window for “aged” designs in their portfolios.
5. Balancing Confidentiality and Disclosure
The Regulations allow the public to request access to the paper copies or drawings of a registered layout‑design, but provide that “except for judicial or administrative proceedings where state authorities are performing their statutory duties, no person may access or copy the electronic version of the copy or drawing of a layout‑design”. The Draft Implementing Rules further specify that paper copies or drawings containing confidential information must be placed in a separate confidential envelope. This design offers strong protection for chip companies’ core design source files (such as GDSII files)—competitors can learn the basic structure from the publicly available paper documents, but cannot obtain electronic data that could be used to directly manufacture chips.
Conclusion
The ultimate effectiveness of the revised Regulations will depend heavily on the final quality of the two exposure drafts—the standards for drafting and examining statements of originality, the evidentiary rules in cancellation proceedings, and the interface between administrative adjudication and judicial remedies are still within the comment period (ending 3 September 2026). For practitioners, now is the time to submit comments and influence the refinement of the rules, and to reassess their layout‑design asset portfolios—existing registrations need to be evaluated against the new standards for stability, and new applications must be built from the very first document to a “cancellation‑proof” standard. The layout‑design, long regarded as a “sleeping right” in China, is awakening.
Core Amendments to the Regulations
The revised Regulations consist of 6 chapters and 54 articles. The key amendments fall into three main areas:
1. Improvement of Filing and Examination Procedures: First, the Regulations explicitly state that the exclusive right in a layout-design arises upon registration with the CNIPA, and that unregistered layout-designs are not protected under the Regulations. A strict time window is also imposed: if an application for registration is not filed within two years from the date of first commercial exploitation anywhere in the world, the CNIPA will no longer register the layout-design. Second, the Regulations require that an application for registration must include an application form, a copy or drawing of the layout-design, and a statement of originality. The statement of originality must specify the original design areas, design highlights, and corresponding functions of the layout-design. The copy or drawing submitted must contain the necessary information to clearly show the original parts of the layout-design. Third, the Regulations emphasize that the application for registration and the exercise of the exclusive right shall comply with the principle of good faith; the application must be based on genuine creative activity and shall not involve fraud. Fourth, the Regulations provide for restoration of rights: if a right is lost due to force majeure, the applicant may request restoration within two months from the removal of the obstacle and within two years from the expiry of the time limit; if the delay is due to other legitimate reasons, the request may be filed within two months from receipt of the notice. However, the time limits set out in Articles 17 (term of protection) and 26 (two-year filing period from first commercial exploitation) are not subject to restoration.
2. Strengthening of Exclusive Right Protection:
1) Punitive damages: For willful infringement of the exclusive right in a layout-design that is serious in nature, punitive damages may be awarded at a multiple of between one and five times the amount determined based on actual loss or infringer’s profit and shall also include reasonable expenses incurred by the right holder to stop the infringement.
2) Administrative enforcement powers: When handling infringement disputes, the CNIPA may, if it finds infringement established, order the infringer to immediately stop the infringement and may seize and destroy the infringing products or articles.
3) Procedure for cancellation upon request: Any person who discovers that a registration does not comply with the Regulations may request the CNIPA to cancel the registration. The grounds for cancellation are limited to non-compliance with Article 3(1)(i), (ii), or Articles 4, 6, 7, 17, 20, 23, 24, or 26 of the Regulations. If a registration is cancelled, the exclusive right in the layout-design is deemed never to have existed.
4) Defense of good-faith use: A person who, at the time of acquiring an integrated circuit containing a protected layout-design or an article containing such an integrated circuit, does not know and has no reasonable grounds to know that it contains an unlawfully copied layout-design, and who puts it into commercial exploitation, shall not be deemed to infringe. After receiving clear notice that it contains an unlawfully copied layout-design, such person may continue to commercially exploit existing stock or prior orders but must pay a reasonable fee to the right holder.
3. Promotion of Exploitation of Layout-Designs: First, the Regulations provide rules for the exercise of jointly owned exclusive rights. Where the co-owners have an agreement, it shall prevail; in the absence of agreement, any co-owner may individually use the layout-design or grant a non-exclusive license to others, and the royalties received shall be distributed among the co-owners. The exercise of jointly owned exclusive rights otherwise requires the consent of all co-owners. Second, the Regulations provide for remuneration for service creations. Where a layout-design is created under the auspices of a legal person or an unincorporated organization, that entity shall, in accordance with the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Promoting the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements and relevant state provisions, give reasonable rewards and remuneration to eligible personnel. Third, the Regulations extend the scope of protectable subject matter. Although the definition of “integrated circuit” in Article 3 still refers to “semiconductor material as the substrate”, a new provision states: “Layout‑designs of integrated circuits that integrate optical, quantum or other functions may be protected in accordance with the provisions of these Regulations.”
Key Amendments in the Draft Implementing Rules
The Draft Implementing Rules provide clear compliance guidance in terms of procedural refinement and practical operability, covering the following three main areas:
1. Streamlining of Registration Applications and Related Procedures: Regarding filing formalities, electronic form is recognized as equivalent to written form, and rules on electronic submission and service are supplemented. Regarding the requirements for application documents, the draft specifies that copies or drawings must include a general drawing and all layer drawings, which must be sequentially numbered with a table of contents indicating each layer’s name; the statement of originality must specify the original parts and, if there are multiple, list them in order and state the reasons for originality for each; the original parts must include modular areas capable of realizing independent functions. For samples, an application that has already been commercially exploited must submit at least four integrated circuit samples, which must be storable in a desiccator for at least ten years. For confidential information, applications not yet commercially exploited may contain confidential information up to 50% of the total area, and the paper copies or drawings containing such information must be placed in a separate confidential envelope and may not be accessed or copied except for judicial or administrative proceedings where state authorities are performing their statutory duties. The draft also establishes a mechanism for restoration of rights, allowing requests within prescribed time limits in cases of force majeure or other legitimate reasons. In addition, a new chapter on “Formalities for the Exercise of Exclusive Rights” is added, systematically regulating assignment registration, licensing recordal, and pledge registration.
2. Improvement of Review and Cancellation Procedures: The draft consolidates the review and cancellation authority with the CNIPA. For review proceedings, it clarifies the circumstances under which a review request will not be accepted and specifies that the examination procedure shall continue after a decision to revoke the original rejection. For cancellation proceedings, it refines the rules on filing, acceptance, and withdrawal: the requester must supplement grounds or evidence within one month from the date of filing, and late submissions may be disregarded; the right holder may only abandon, not add or modify, the original parts claimed in the statement of originality during the cancellation proceedings; oral hearing procedures are introduced, and the specified time limits are not extendable.
3. Strengthening Protection and Promoting Exploitation: The draft clarifies that the CNIPA may, upon request, handle administrative adjudication of infringement disputes and may mediate on the amount of compensation. In infringement proceedings, the requester must specify the original part(s) in the statement of originality that it relies upon as the basis for its claim, and the CNIPA shall determine the scope of adjudication accordingly. Regarding suspension of administrative adjudication proceedings, a new provision allows the CNIPA not to suspend if the grounds for suspension are manifestly unfounded. For non-voluntary licenses, the draft details the procedures for request, acceptance, review, and decision. Where a Chinese entity assigns or licenses the exclusive right to a foreign party, it must produce the technology export license or technology export contract registration certificate issued by the competent commerce authority of the State Council.
Key Amendments in the Draft Guidelines
The Draft Guidelines comprehensively revise the existing provisional guidelines, covering four parts: registration examination, review and cancellation, administrative adjudication, and licensing and pledge. For registration examination, the draft divides the examination process into acceptance and examination, and further divides examination into examination of obvious substantive defects and examination of formalities. In terms of examination standards, it provides for the handling of applications that violate the principle of good faith – the following conduct generally does not meet the good faith requirement: (1) multiple applications with clearly identical layout-design content; (2) clearly fabricated or obviously copied existing layout-designs; (3) multiple applications filed without genuine creative activity and without reasonable explanation; (4) submission of false evidence in proceedings. It clarifies the examination of protectable subject matter, stating that a copy or drawing that clearly shows characteristics of a circuit board or that does not include a layer with active elements does not qualify as a protectable layout-design. It also refines the requirements for submitting copies or drawings and the drafting of statements of originality. For formalities examination, it adds examination of requests for withdrawal of applications, improves the examination of requests for abandonment of exclusive rights, adds examination of requests for extension of time limits, and supplements the requirements for supporting documents in changes to bibliographic data.
For review and cancellation, the draft improves both ex officio and request-based initiation of cancellation proceedings. It clarifies that in cancellation proceedings, amendments to the statement of originality are limited to abandoning one or more claimed original parts; no addition or change is generally permitted. It adds a recusal system for examiners who participated in the original examination. It adds ex officio examination of violations of the good-faith principle. It refines the rules for handling subsequent cancellation requests against the same layout-design exclusive right. It also adds provisions on suspension of review proceedings and on the standing of requesters in cancellation proceedings.
For administrative adjudication, the draft makes adaptive changes in line with the Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China and the amended Regulations, replacing “other organizations” with “unincorporated organizations”, and uniformly renaming “administrative enforcement” as “administrative adjudication”, “enforcement officers” as “case-handling officers”, and the “Integrated Circuit Layout-Design Administrative Enforcement Committee” as the “Intellectual Property Administrative Adjudication Committee”. On substantive aspects, it refines the way original parts are asserted in infringement cases, provides for online oral hearings, allows the collegial panel to organize the parties to negotiate the appointment of experts and the allocation of expert fees, adds circumstances in which suspension may be refused, and introduces the “first adjudicate and dismiss, then file anew” mechanism. The infringement determination adopts a “contact plus substantial similarity” test throughout.
For licensing and pledge, regarding license recordal, the draft requires that recordal be made within three months from the effective date of the license agreement; it also requires that a Chinese party assigning or licensing to a foreign party must produce the technology export license or registration certificate from the commerce authority. Regarding pledge registration, it improves the rules for filling in debt information in the case of a maximum pledge, explicitly requires both parties to the pledge to sign and confirm on the copy of the principal debt contract, and provides that a layout-design already subject to cancellation proceedings will not be accepted for pledge registration unless the parties, after being informed, declare their consent to proceed. For filing methods, it promotes full online processing.
Analysis of Key Institutional Features
1. The Statement of Originality: A “Claim Set” for Layout-Designs
The statement of originality is the most significant innovation of this revision. This mechanism operates across four stages: application (as a mandatory document), examination/cancellation (where original parts may be abandoned), scope definition (the copy/drawing prevails, with the statement used for interpretation), and infringement adjudication (where the scope is determined by the original parts asserted by the requester). In effect, it functions much like a patent claim set. The advantage is the ex ante certainty of scope—competitors can assess design‑around options from the date of registration publication, and right holders no longer need to reconstruct originality arguments after the fact. However, this shifts risk to the applicant: the quality of the statement will determine the stability and boundary of the right—over‑claiming invites cancellation, under‑claiming self‑limits. “How to draft a statement of originality” will become a core skill in layout‑design prosecution and may also give rise to new professional liability disputes. In cancellation proceedings, the mandatory “reduce only, no addition” rule—amendments limited to abandoning claimed parts, with no addition or change in principle—closes the grey space of tactical amendments during disputes, forcing chip enterprises to achieve precision in both the statement and the circled areas from the outset.
2. Punitive Damages: Entering the “Strong Protection” Regime
The introduction of punitive damages (between one and five times the base amount) places Chinese layout‑design protection in the same “strong protection” category as patents and trademarks. The administrative power to seize and destroy infringing products provides a swift remedy outside the judicial route. Notably, the draft Regulations published for comment in 2024 had included statutory damages (up to RMB 5 million) and pre‑suit evidence preservation, but these were not adopted in the final text. This may reflect the legislator’s caution about granting overly strong remedies to a registration‑based right that issues without substantive examination. It also means that proof of damages will depend on the rules of evidence; right holders should retain pricing and sales records from commercial exploitation and licensing to support the “multiple of license fees” approach.
3. Good Faith and Request‑Based Cancellation: Full‑Cycle Coverage
Articles 9 and 20 of the Regulations, together with the list of bad‑faith scenarios and ex officio examination provisions in the Draft Guidelines, form a network to combat “layout‑design laundering”. The introduction of a request‑based cancellation procedure has even broader significance. Previously, cancellation could only be initiated ex officio, and the administration, facing a massive volume of registrations, was unable to actively weed out low‑quality ones. Now, with any person able to request cancellation and the procedure designed as a quasi‑invalidation proceeding, the legal stability of layout‑design registrations will for the first time be tested by the market. Cancellation attacks between competitors may replace some infringement litigation as a new battleground in industrial competition. For a competitor’s prior registration, a cancellation request is a low‑cost defensive weapon; for one’s own core layout‑design, the application file must be prepared to a standard that can withstand cancellation scrutiny.
4. Significant Adjustment to the Term of Protection
The Regulations provide a term of protection of 10 years, calculated from the date of application or from the date of first commercial exploitation anywhere in the world, whichever is earlier. It also states that “whether or not registered or commercially exploited, a layout‑design shall no longer be protected under these Regulations 15 years after its date of creation”. This effectively compresses the maximum possible term: previously, a right holder could file at any time within 15 years of creation and obtain 10 years of protection (up to a total of 25 years); under the new rule, the latest possible protection ends 15 years after creation. This poses a significant risk for layout‑designs created years ago but not yet filed—right holders must reassess the remaining protection window for “aged” designs in their portfolios.
5. Balancing Confidentiality and Disclosure
The Regulations allow the public to request access to the paper copies or drawings of a registered layout‑design, but provide that “except for judicial or administrative proceedings where state authorities are performing their statutory duties, no person may access or copy the electronic version of the copy or drawing of a layout‑design”. The Draft Implementing Rules further specify that paper copies or drawings containing confidential information must be placed in a separate confidential envelope. This design offers strong protection for chip companies’ core design source files (such as GDSII files)—competitors can learn the basic structure from the publicly available paper documents, but cannot obtain electronic data that could be used to directly manufacture chips.
Conclusion
The ultimate effectiveness of the revised Regulations will depend heavily on the final quality of the two exposure drafts—the standards for drafting and examining statements of originality, the evidentiary rules in cancellation proceedings, and the interface between administrative adjudication and judicial remedies are still within the comment period (ending 3 September 2026). For practitioners, now is the time to submit comments and influence the refinement of the rules, and to reassess their layout‑design asset portfolios—existing registrations need to be evaluated against the new standards for stability, and new applications must be built from the very first document to a “cancellation‑proof” standard. The layout‑design, long regarded as a “sleeping right” in China, is awakening.