Hanguo Zhang

Mr. Zhang is an Equity Partner at Grandway Law Offices, with his primary practice area focusing on intellectual property (IP) matters, including both contentious and non-contentious IP work. He has over 20 years of experience in the legal profession. Additionally, Mr. Zhang possesses relevant technical experience, having previously engaged in technical work. Prior to joining Grandway, Mr. Zhang served as a partner and the leader of the patent practice area at a leading domestic law firm. During this period, he concentrated on contentious and non-contentious IP matters, handling hundreds of legal cases, providing services to multiple Fortune 500 companies, and appearing in court dozens of times. Due to his outstanding performance and excellent reputation, he was honored with the title of "2020 ALB China Top 15 IP Lawyers". Earlier in his career, Mr. Zhang worked at the National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) of China, where he held positions in the Patent Reexamination and Invalidation Board, the Department of Planning and Development, and the Department of Examination and Management. He also served as the Director of the Legal Affairs Division, overseeing CNIPA's administrative reconsideration, administrative litigation, official investigation, and property preservation work. As one of CNIPA's first public interest lawyers and a Level-2 Patent Examiner, he participated in the examination and litigation of over a thousand cases related to patent reexamination, invalidation, administrative reconsideration, and administrative litigation, and appeared in court nearly 300 times. Furthermore, Mr. Zhang took part in the research and formulation of China's 12th, 13th, and 14th Five-Year Plans for intellectual property development. He is well-versed in the administrative work of state organs and possesses a high level of expertise in legal policies. Before joining CNIPA, Mr. Zhang had already handled hundreds of legal cases covering various fields such as civil law, criminal law, administrative law, and arbitration. Since joining Grandway Law Offices, Mr. Zhang has handled dozens of IP cases. His IP practice primarily focuses on technical IP matters, particularly patent and trade secret cases, spanning technical fields including electronics, telecommunications, chemistry, pharmaceuticals, and machinery. The types of work he undertakes include patent application, patent reexamination, patent invalidation, patent litigation, patent analysis, patent licensing, trade secret management, and the handling of civil and criminal disputes related to trade secrets. Mr. Zhang also has a solid legal foundation and extensive work experience in the fields of trademarks and copyrights. He once served as a people's assessor in Beijing courts, participating in the trial of dozens of IP cases (primarily in the trademark field). He was also involved in initiating the China Cultural and Creative Copyright Protection Alliance, actively assisting copyright owners in exercising and protecting their copyrights.

• Represent the invalidation case of patent application No. CN200580035113.4 and the first instance of the related administrative litigation case. Chengdu Oci Medical Devices CO.,Ltd is a high - tech enterprise with independent legal person status that is professionally committed to the research, development, production, and sales of blood purification and related medical device products. This project involves one of a series of patent infringement lawsuits initiated by a leading Japanese medical enterprise, as the patentee, against our client. The patentee claimed a huge amount of compensation. In this case, we helped the client achieve victory in both the invalidation case and the first instance of the related administrative litigation case. These judgments fundamentally undermined the legal basis of the patentee's rights in the infringement cases, forcing it to voluntarily withdraw all the infringement lawsuits.The subject matter amount of the infringement cases in this project totals approximately 9 million yuan (RMB).This case is ongoing since May 2024.
• Represent Guangdong Lyric Robot Automation Co., Ltd. in a series of patent infringement tort cases and related invalidation cases. The main difficulty of this project lies in the close connection between the two infringement lawsuits and the two invalidation cases, where any change in one part can affect the whole. As Lyric is the defendant in the two infringement cases, the outcome of the invalidation cases is of great importance. Grandway took the following targeted measures to deal with the series of cases: (1) Accurately and deeply understand the patent technology. The team conducted in - depth research on the technical content of the two patents involved, fully understood the specific meaning of each technical feature, and confirmed with the client the objective content of each technical feature and the technology actually used in the client's products. Based on this understanding, the team was able to formulate strategies for the invalidation cases and retrieved a large number of comparative documents for invalidating the patents involved. (2) Comprehensively grasp the case situation. Although the team is not the sole representative in the series of cases, due to the inseparable relationship between the patent infringement lawsuits and the invalidation cases, the team, in addition to understanding the basic facts of the cases it represents, also comprehensively understood and mastered the related facts and the opinions of all parties. Since the client initiated invalidation requests for the patents involved in the two infringement lawsuits, the team maintained consistency in facts and statements in litigation and invalidation cases to avoid situations unfavorable to the client. At the same time, the team also timely informed the court and CNIPA of the related case situations, striving to obtain favorable results for the client.The patent invalidation case does not involve a monetary subject matter, but the subject matter of the associated patent infringement case amounts to 99 million yuan(RMB).The date completed of this case is July 2024.
• Represent in the retrial and p rotest procedures of an administrative lawsuit case filed against a certain patent invalidation decision. The CNIPA finally decided that all the claims of the patent were invalid. Through the effective strategy of patent invalidation declaration, not only has it won the lawsuit for the client, but more importantly, it has avoided a high compensation of nearly 100 million yuan, safeguarding the economic interests and reputation of the enterprise. The success of this project demonstrates the profound expertise in patent law, technical understanding, evidence collection and analysis, as well as the high-efficiency execution ability of the Grandway team. During the oral hearing process, our team communicated effectively, enabling the collegial panel of the CNIPA to accept our team's viewpoints, thus providing high-quality legal services for the enterprise. This case is ongoing since may,2024.
• Represent the invalidation case that was restarted after losing the administrative lawsuit for the invention patent with NO.00811303.3 and the name "Compressor". This case involves two giant companies in the domestic air - conditioning industry, AUX Air - Conditioner Co., Ltd. and Gree Electric Appliances, Inc. of Zhuhai. The case has been reported by many news media and has attracted widespread attention within the industry. The compensation amount involved in the related infringement cases of this case is huge. The patent in question is an invention patent. Based on this patent, AUX filed four infringement lawsuits against Gree in the Intermediate People's Courts of Hangzhou and Ningbo in Zhejiang Province. In the first instance of all four cases, infringement was determined, and the total compensation amount awarded was 225 million yuan.This case is ongoing since 10/2024.

• Intellectual property

• Construction and materials
• Consumer goods and services
• Energy
• Industrials
• Pharmaceutical and life sciences
• Technology and telecommunications

• Bachelor of Engineering    Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA)    1992-1996
• Master of Laws    Southwest University of Political Science and Law (SWUPL) 1999-2002
• Doctor of Laws    Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (ZUEL) 2010-2015

• Chinese Lawyer Certificate:11101199910352445