On 27 Sept. 2021, China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) released ten typical cases of anti-monopoly and anti-unfair competition, aiming to unify judgment standards in this area.

The typical cases cover traditional acts of unfair competition and monopoly such as infringement of trade secrets and abuse of dominant market position, and also respond to the issue of determining new-type unfair competition such as online click farming and video advertisement blocking.

As one of the typical cases, OPPO v. Sisvel (OPPO诉西斯威尔滥用市场支配地位纠纷案)( (2020) Zui Gao Fa Zhi Min Xia Zhong No.392, (2020)最高法知民辖终392号) focused on determining the jurisdiction of monopoly disputes related to Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) over abuse of dominant market position.

This case involved the impact on the jurisdiction of Chinese courts when the two parties had concurrent proceedings regarding SEPs infringement in different jurisdictions around the world, and discussed the issue of whether the doctrine of forum non conveniens shall apply to the monopoly cases where the relevant facts of the case occurred abroad.

Under the application principle of extraterritorial monopoly stipulated in Article 2 of the Anti-monopoly Law, the ruling of this case clarified the jurisdiction rules for monopoly cases involving international SEPs, after exploring the extraterritorial jurisdiction of monopoly disputes.