Areas of practice
Dr. Gao specializes in intellectual property litigation involving patents, trade secrets, trademarks, copyrights, patent right abuse, end-of-patent-life litigation for pharmaceutical products, and appeals to the PRC Supreme Court for the above types of cases.
Dr. Gao advises multinational technology companies on intellectual property protection and enforcement strategies, and has handled many famous cases, including more than 10 groups of cases (a total of over 80 cases) on appeal to the PRC Supreme Court.
In its special editions of “The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business” from 2007 to 2023, Chambers Global has consistently ranked Dr. Gao as a top IP lawyer in China.
“No case is similar to another, since the smallest difference in the fact can significantly change the outcome. We research every new case in view of the latest law and court practice to design a new winning strategy. ” Dr. Gao says.
Representative Matters and Cases:
Patents
- Represented Boehringer Ingelheim in the first and only National Major Patent Infringement Case against generic drug company DYG. The judgment was successfully enforced against the defendant across 28 provinces only 18 months following initial filing of the case. 2023.
- Represented Apple Inc, etc in Apple v. Qualcomm for standard essential patent (“SEP”) licensing disputes. The damages claimed exceed RMB1.6 billion. Apple engaged only Dr. Gao’s team, while Qualcomm engaged 6 teams for a fight involving more than thirty patent infringement cases before 11 IP Courts, Provincial High Courts and the Supreme people’s Court (“SPC”) in China. This case was the largest SEP case at the time in China.
- Represents Apple Inc. in IWNCOMM v. Apple, a patent infringement case filed by Xidian (“IWNCOMM”) in the Shaanxi High Court, in which the claimed damage are RMB150 million.
- Represented Apple Inc. in Apple v. IWNCOMM in the FRAND/SEP actions and anti-monopoly action with the Beijing IP Court. This case was designed to counteract IWNCOMM lawsuit in the Shaanxi High Court.
- Represented Astellas Inc. in patent infringement cases before six IP Courts and High Courts in China, seeking damages in excess of MRB180 million, against dozens of Chinese generic drug companies.
- Represented Apple in a large number of patent infringement and invalidation lawsuits related to wireless communication technology against patentees in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
- Represented Apple in Baili v. Apple, a design patent infringement action filed by Baili, as well as the related declaratory judgment and invalidation actions.
- Represents Apple Inc. in iRobot v. Apple patent infringement case.
- Represented Watson Pharmaceutical Inc. in its patent infringement lawsuit against Ely Lilly before the Supreme People’s Court in which the Supreme Court reversed a judgment of RMB151 million previously entered against Watson Pharmaceutical (selected as the first Supreme Court Model IP Case on International IP Day, April 26, 2014). The case was lost in previous proceedings and this client turned to the Dr. Gao for the final appeal to the Supreme People’s Court.
- Represented Power Integration in Power Integration v. Fairchild Semiconductor in winning four patent infringement cases in some of the longest and most complex trials in China
- Advised Knowles in Knowles v. GoerTek on defending against a patent infringement lawsuit, overcame local protection interference, devised and implemented novel strategies to ultimately obtain a favorable settlement for the client. The case had a record long trial in China that lasted for more than 3 months.
Trade Secrets and Unfair Competition
- Advised INEOS in INEOS v. Sinopec on the largest trade secret case in Chinese history
Trademark
- Represented Michael Jordan against Qiaodan Sports in his successful claim to the Chinese character mark “Qiaodan” . The case involved filing over 80 cases in total across China with certiorari petitions to the Chinese Supreme People Court, which resulted in 77 complete victories. This is the one of the few cases reported by the CCTV in China, and was selected as the Supreme Court Model IP case on International IP Day, April 26, 2016. Mr. Jordan has lost many cases against the same opponent for over 10 years before engaging Dr. Gao’s team, who used novel strategies involving filing numerous cases to ultimately achieve the final victory.
- Advised New Balance on successfully reducing to RMB 5 million a record- breaking RMB 98 million first instance award to a trademark squatter in the unfair competition and trademark infringement dispute between New Balance and Zhou the squatter. The case was lost in previous instance when the client turned to Dr. Gao’s team.
- Represented Rolex against Beijing Cinet for its cybersquatting on Rolex’s trademark rights (selected as one of the first Supreme Court Top Fifty IP Cases)
- Advised NEC on obtaining injunctions and damages in its corporate identity theft case before numerous Chinese courts against more than 50 Chinese, Taiwanese, Hong Kong and Japanese defendants, and ultimately won the entire case. The case was widely discuss at the INTA Conference.
- Represented Tesla in canceling several squatted trademarks and obtaining a favorable settlement in a trademark case against a local trademark squatter
- Represented Ralph Lauren Corp. against several trademark squatters and infringers in over twenty litigation proceedings. Used creative approaches to collect evidence, and achieved favorable breakthroughs in these proceedings.
Copyright
- Represented Apple in more than 130 copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and unfair competition disputes related to Apple App Store. Many of these cases were selected as the annual “Top 10 IP Cases” by the National Intellectual Property Administration and the Beijing High Court.
Antimonopoly and FRAND cases
- Advised Meizu on its anti-trust and FRAND rate cases against Qualcomm. The civil actions include the first declaratory judgment for non-infringement. When the Meizu team was not happy with the former counsel, Meizu switched to Dr. Gao’s team on recommendation of an existing client.
Work experience
Dr. Gao has been ranked as a top IP lawyer in China in the 2007 to 2023 editions of Chambers Global: The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business.
Dr. Gao joined King & Wood Mallesons in 2022. Previously, he worked in the Hong Kong office of an international law firm and at a renowned Chinese firm.
Dr. Gao received his B.Eng. Daqing Petroleum Institute, MS. University of Houston, Ph.D. Stanford University and J.D. University of California Law School, San Francisco.
Dr. Gao is admitted to practice law in California and before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Dr. Gao’s working languages are Chinese and English.
