Patent Amendments ©(Part II of II)

The Greater China IP Updates ĄV November 2025

By Lyndon

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China Takes Advantage of Japan’s Inattention to GI Rights

Japan has failed to protect its potential Geographical Indications (GI) rights amid the current worldwide craze for matcha tea products. Japan’s invention of richly flavored green tea powder known as matcha has become more and more popular as a flavor in drinks, ice cream, cookies and chocolate brands like KitKat. Originally, matcha production was labor intensive to produce and the tea needed specific conditions to be cultivated successfully. To qualify for GI protection, Japanese farmers needed to maintain the laborious methods used by traditional growers. In fact, only two kinds of tea in Japan are designated for protection, two kinds of infused green teas called sencha. Because of the inconvenience and strict conditions of the GI application process, most farmers are preferring to sell their ground teas into the local market where it can still be used as tea or for other food flavoring. Also, with limited land and a small workforce, how to expand production is a complicated issue for farmers. Last year, tea growing regions in Japan endured a drought which reduced supply, and China has stepped up its production to fill the gap. Now, China processes more green tea into matcha which will satisfy the Chinese market and, increasingly, the Japanese and global market. The Chinese product does not come close in terms of quality compared to the Sencha teas or the local Uji and Fukuoka varieties but is acceptable. Japan has not made much effort to enable GI protection for its unique food and drink products allowing inferior Chinese products to trade under the matcha name.

China Transfers AI Copyright Cases to Intermediate People’s Courts

Effective November 1, 2025, the jurisdiction of the Internet Court will be removed from five types of cases including copyright or neighboring rights disputes involving works first published online and disputes arising from infringement of copyright or neighboring rights in works published or disseminated online. The Supreme People’s Court (SPC) explained that the Internet Courts will focus on new, cutting edge and complex online cases while general and traditional online cases will be heard by other local courts. The Internet Court will now have jurisdiction over four new areas including online data ownership, infringement, contract disputes, and online unfair competition disputes. These new duties will be in addition to jurisdiction over internet domain name ownership, infringement, and contract disputes, disputes arising from the signing or performance completed online, and online public interest litigation cases initiated by the procuratorate. Previously, the Beijing Internet Court had been a leader in copyright jurisprudence for generative artificial intelligence cases delivering such judgements as recognizing copyright for images created using generative AI, and determining the amount of creativity needed to claim copyright in such cases. AI copyright cases will now be looked at by People’s Courts unless the Supreme People’s Court designates otherwise.

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