Ping Gu

Practice Areas

IP Licensing & Enforcement, Compliance & Investigation, Antitrust & Competition

Professional Memberships

Adjunct Professor, Hong Kong City University

Director, Amicus Curiae Committee of the International Trademark Association

Director, the Regional Committee for Asia of AIPPI

Executive director, Legal Application Professional Committee of the China Intellectual Property Law Research Association

Personal

Ping is a partner of the firm and she splits her time between Beijing and New York offices. Ping is a seasoned IP law expert with 20 years of top US and China law firm experience and she has represented more than 40 patent litigations and 337 investigations before the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and various federal courts.

She leads a team that work on the most cutting-edge patent and trade secret cases in China representing international companies. Many of her cases are awarded as “Exemplary Case” by the Supreme Court of China, “Case of the Year” by China Business Law Journal, “Top 10 Cases” by Beijing IP Court and the China Patent Office etc. She has been recognized as a leading global lawyer in intellectual property by Chambers for several years. Her clients include TSMC, Google, Sony, Netgear, ExxonMobil, BASF, SABIC, JCET, etc.

Work Highlights

Representative Contentious IP cases in China

• Represented Sogou in more than 20 patent invalidation and infringement lawsuits against Baidu, involving human-computer interaction technologies such as input methods, the Internet and smart terminals; this series of cases was called “China’s first Internet patent case" and was rated as an Outstanding Deal in Commercial Law of 2019 and 2020; some of the cases were voted by the Supreme Court of China as exemplary cases in intellectual property law

• Represented the defendant Sony in a standard essential patent infringement litigation initiated by Xi’an Xidian Jietong involving mobile phone technology before Beijing Intellectual Property Court; this case was voted as one of the ten most important IP cases tried by Beijing IP Court in 2016

• Represented Sony in a patent invalidation case before the Patent Reexamination Board, involving WAPI standard patents; this case was nominated as the first case of the top 10 cases before the Patent Reexamination Board in 2016

• Represented Kudelski Group, NagraVision and Open TV in a series of patent infringement litigations against Apple involving digital security, smart phone technology before Beijing Intellectual Property Court; this case was voted as one of the ten most important IP cases tried by Beijing IP Court in 2016

• Represented Hengbao Co. Ltd. in a patent infringement case before Beijing High Court against Watchdata Technologies, involving physical authentication methods for making online payments; this case was selected as one of the “Top Ten Hot IP Cases in 2016" by the IPhouse

Semiconductors

• Represented Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd. in handling patent invalidity and infringement litigation in the semiconductor field, including forensics, slicing, technical feature comparison, etc.

• Represented Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd. in responding to a patent infringement war in the semiconductor field initiated by a world-renowned semiconductor company, involving semiconductor design processes and devices, and finally helped the client reach a global settlement with the semiconductor company

• Represented JCET in patent invalidation, patent and trade secret infringement cases and patent ownership disputes involving semiconductor packaging

• Represented an American semiconductor company handling the consultation of trade secret rights protection, involving the production technology of memory chips across China, the United States and Taiwan

• Represented a semiconductor company in Wuhan in handling patent application acceleration matters; based on a full understanding and elaboration of the patented technology, successfully obtained the patent for the client. The technology involved “acoustic resonator"

• Represented Fudan Microelectronics in negotiating with U.S. and European companies on patented technologies related to international standards for radio frequency technology, and drafting the license agreement

• Represented Rambus on technology licensing matters with partners in China’s joint venture projects, involving DRAM chips

• Advised Zhongke Cambrian Technology Co., Ltd., a unicorn in the chip field, in the process of IPO on intellectual property issues, and Cambrian has been successfully listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board

• Represented an internationally renowned chip company in anti-monopoly investigations held by relevant state agencies involving technology, intellectual property rights, and standard patents

• Represented Actions in contract review involving integrated circuits and chips

• Represented Kulicke and Soffa Industries, Inc. in the potential patent infringement and software copyright infringement cases and issuing a C&D Letter

• Represented a domestic high-tech company to negotiate a license with FINISAR on a core standard patent on the photoelectric converter technology

• Represented Shaanxi Wright Optoelectronics, a domestic OLED material giant, in patent stability and non-infringement analysis and patent license negotiations, and successfully assisted the client to reach a patent license with a company, involving organic compounds and manufacturng processes in the OLED field

Wireless Communications and Internet

• Represented Qualcomm in preparing for a standard-essential patent litigation involving frequency-hopping spread spectrum

• Represented Samsung, the defendant in a patent infringement litigation, successfully invalidated the plaintiff’s patent and obtained a ruling to dismiss the suit

• Represented Qualcomm in preparing for a standard-essential patent litigation, involving frequency-hopping spread spectrum

• Represented Tencent before the Beijing No.1 Intermediate Court on invalidity of patent claims involving the “People around" technology of WeChat and won the case, and this case has been widely followed by the media and the industry. The winning rate of similar cases is only 11%

• Represented an internet company in a series of patent invalidation and administrative litigation against Alibaba, involving online payment, identity verification, online certificate authentication, etc.

• Represented Sogou in a lawsuit seeking declaration of non-infringement against Jiugong involving the input method technology; the Supreme People’s Court of the Intellectual Property Court made a final judgment confirming that Sogou does not infringe Jiugong’s patent; this case has seen the final ruling of the Supreme Court in retrial, denying Jiugong’s request for review

• Represented NETGEAR in a patent infringement case filed by Shenzhen Dunjun Technology Co., Ltd., involving wireless router products and related technologies

• Represented NETGEAR in response to patent administrative investigation cases and parallel patent invalidation cases in multiple local intellectual property offices filed by a well-known foreign NPE, involving wireless router products and related technologies

• Represented NETGEAR in responding to patent infringement lawsuits filed by a well-known foreign NPE’s Chinese licensees in multiple courts, involving wireless router products and communication-related technologies

• Representing NETGEAR in a litigation against a series of malicious litigations filed well-known foreign NPE’s

• Represented Microsoft (China) in a copyright infringement lawsuit before the Supreme Court of China for retrial involving operating system fonts

• Represented Microsoft in a lawsuit against Zhongyizhongbiao before the Supreme Court of China involving a font patent

• Defended Microsoft in a patent infringement lawsuit involving XBOX before the Beijing No.1 Intermediate Court

• Represented RealNetWorks in an arbitration on software technology licensing disputes before China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC)

• Represented RealNetworks in a software copyright infringement dispute involving audio/video encoding and decoding technique in mobile phones and computers

• In the SAP v. YOK case, successfully represented the plaintiff, SAP, in a series of software copyright infringement cases before the Shenzhen Futian Court; the court ruled that the defendant YOK committed copyright infringement and issued an injunction

• In the SAP v. YOK case, successfully represented the plaintiff, SAP, in a software copyright and unfair competition case before the Shenzhen Nanshan Court; the court ruled that the defendant YOK committed copyright infringement and unfair competition

• Represented Samsung, the defendant in a patent infringement litigation, and successfully invalidated the plaintiff’s patent and obtained a ruling for dismissing the suit before the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court

• Represented Ericsson (Sweden) for invalidation of a number of invention patents filed by a domestic company

• Successfully represented Ubiquiti, a U.S. client, in a software copyright infringement lawsuit before Shenzhen Intermediate Court

• Represented Shenzhen RoadRover Technology Co., Ltd in a series patent invalidation cases involving car multimedia navigation system and won the cases

• Represented an Australian company for preparation of filing a patent infringement lawsuit in the field of telecommunications

• Represented Shenzhen Ultra Multi-dimensional, a leading company in the field of 3D display, and won the first trial on the 3D mobile phone invention patent infringement case

• Represented Huawei to conduct research and analysis on intellectual property related legal issues in the AI field, and issued analysis reports including intellectual property protection strategies, intellectual property clause drafting, medical AI legal risks, etc.

Attorney’s bio can be found here: https://en.zhonglun.com/team/guping.html

Languages Spoken

Chinese

English

Experience

Partner, Zhong Lun Law Firm, 2011 to present

Partner, Unitalen Attorneys at Law, Beijing China, 2009-2011

Associate, Milbank Tweed Hadley McCloy LLP, 2007-2009

Associate, Morgan & Finnegan LLP, 2002- 2007

Summer Associate, Morgan & Finnegan LLP, 2001

Expert in these Jurisdictions

New York State Bar

Admitted to the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York

Registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office