Asia IP & Competition Law Center

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Faculty

Robert P. Merges, co-director, is Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati Professor of Law and Associate Dean of Advanced Degree Programs and Global Engagement. He is the author of Justifying Intellectual Property, published by Harvard University Press in 2011. A comprehensive statement of mature views on the ethical and economic foundations of IP law, the book reviews foundational philosophical theories of property and contemporary theories about distributive justice and applies them to IP; identifies operational high-level principles of IP law; and, with all this as background, works through several pressing problems facing IP law today. Professor Merges also has undertaken extensive revisions to two of the casebooks he coauthors, to update them in light of the America Invents Act. Publications, courses, and more »

Fellows

Dr. Yuan Hao is a senior fellow / co-director of the newly established Berkeley Asia IP and Competition Law Center (BAIC) at BCLT. Yuan’s research interests are focused on two areas: (1) IP’s specific role in facilitating human creativity in an AI-powered age; and (2) IP’s specific role in the growth of private ordering and innovation eco-system in the shadow of an authoritarian government. For the former interest, Yuan is co-teaching a brand-new course titled IP and Human Creativity in an “AI Age” starting in the autumn of 2023, and her very recent article of The Rise of Centaur Inventors has been published in the Journal of Patent and Trademark Office Society (Vol. 104, Jan. 2024). In 2024-2025, Yuan is also hosting a global talk series on generative AI and human creativity. Regarding the latter interest, Yuan’s research is currently focused on the evolving landscape of standard essential patent (SEP) licensing and litigation, as well as the curious interplay of patent and antitrust in China.

Before Yuan joined Berkeley, she taught patent law and anti-monopoly law in the School of Law at Tsinghua University. As an influential academic, Yuan advised key IP and anti-monopoly legislation projects in China. She also participated in a dozen litigation, administrative investigation, and arbitration cases, including a major SEP antitrust investigation proceeding, as a panel member or expert witness. In 2018, Yuan was listed as an arbitrator in the International Arbitration Center in Tokyo (IACT), which aims to specialize in SEP-related arbitrations.  

Yuan received her J.D. from Brooklyn Law School (2011), Ph.D. in Nano-electronics from Penn State University (2006), and B.S. in Physics from Peking University (1999). 

Student Fellows

Victor Jiawei Zhang is a Lloyd M. Robbins Doctor of Juridical Science (J.S.D.) Fellow at UC Berkeley Law School. Jiawei’s research interests include information technology law, competition law, AI governance, and comparative policy study of various jurisdictions. Jiawei’s writings have been recognized by leading U.S. law journals, including Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, Stanford Law & Policy Review Online, North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology, Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property, and The Regulatory Review In Depth. Concurrently, Jiawei is also a PhD candidate at the Technical University of Munich School of Social Sciences and Technology. He holds an M.Phil. from the University of Oxford with a full scholarship and an LL.M. from U.C. Berkeley Law School.

Sasmita Mishra is a 2025 LL.M. graduate from Berkeley Law, where she earned the Law & Technology Certificate. Before Berkeley, she spent eight years in India working across both law firm and in-house roles, including six years as Senior Legal Manager at a leading health technology company spanning e-pharmacy, telemedicine, and diagnostic services. In that role, she focused on regulatory strategy, data protection, digital health compliance, and corporate transactions, supporting the company through major milestones, including M&A, IPO preparation, and cross-border legal coordination. At Berkeley, Sasmita focused on AI, technology law, and policy, taking courses like Law and Governance of AI, Information Privacy Law, and Computer Programming for Lawyers. She served as a Fall Fellow with the Berkeley AI Safety Student Initiative, co-organizing an interdisciplinary event on AI safety. Her current interests lie at the intersection of AI governance, privacy, and the legal frameworks shaping generative technologies, with a focus on how contract-based and industry-led approaches are influencing global AI regulation.

Visiting Fellow

Chang Zi Qian is a Visiting Scholar at Berkeley Law under Professor Merges’ mentorship and a 2025 LL.M. graduate from Berkeley Law. His career spans commercial litigation, government innovation policy, and entrepreneurship. After law practice, he served in the Singapore Prime Minister’s Office, shaping startup policy and managing government venture investments. Prior to Berkeley, Chang spent a decade as Founder and CEO of INTELLLEX, pioneering AI-driven legal research and knowledge management solutions. He is currently a mentor and co-instructor of the “Deep Tech Commercialization Strategies” and “Deep Tech Innovation and Entrepreneurship” courses at the Haas School of Business. Beyond Berkeley, he also advises PixVerse, an AI video generation startup. His academic interests lie in generative AI’s business and legal impact on the legal and creative industries. Chang’s work bridges cutting-edge technological innovation with practical commercial applications and responsible governance frameworks.

Affiliated Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow

Bian Renjun is an assistant professor at Peking University Law School. She is an interdisciplinary legal researcher interested in intellectual property law and empirical legal studies. Her current research examines both AI for IP law, and IP law for AI, i.e., the incorporation of artificial intelligence into traditional IP studies and the impact of artificial intelligence on the current IP law framework. Renjun received her J.S.D. and LL.M. from the University of California, Berkeley, and her LL.B. from Peking University. 

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

The Berkeley Asia IP & Competition Law Center (BAIC) advances rigorous, comparative research on intellectual property, competition law, and innovation policy across the Pacific.

This section features selected scholarly works of our faculty and fellows, and conference reports produced through BAIC’s collaborations with leading universities, research institutes, and practitioners worldwide.

The 2024 Patent Valuation and Damages Workshop: A US-China Comparative Law Perspective

Abstract

This report summarizes the proceedings of the 2024 Patent Valuation and Damages Workshop: A U.S.–China Comparative Law Perspective, jointly organized by the Berkeley Asia IP & Competition Law Center (BAIC), Berkeley Center for Law and Technology (BCLT), KoGuan School of Law at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and the Institute of Intellectual Property and Competition Law. Held in Shanghai on May 28, 2024, the workshop convened leading judges, scholars, practitioners, in-house counsel, and economists from both countries to examine the evolving frameworks for patent damages and valuation. As the inaugural workshop on patent law and practice from a U.S.–China comparative perspective, pioneered by BAIC and BCLT, it explored compensatory damages (lost profits, reasonable royalties, price erosion, apportionment), punitive damages and their deterrence effects, the challenges of valuing and licensing standard-essential patents (SEPs), and the “important but limited” role of judicial rate setting in shaping technology markets. With attention to both theoretical underpinnings and practical case studies, the report highlights key similarities and divergences in practice, as well as the implications for global patent litigation and licensing. By capturing this pioneering comparative dialogue, the report provides valuable insight into the jurisprudential evolution of patent remedies and their broader policy context in the world’s two largest innovation economies.

Advanced Codec Technology, LLC v. Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Co., Ltd.: First Substantive Determination of FRAND License Fee by the Chinese Supreme People’s Court

Abstract

This book chapter examines Advanced Codec Technology, LLC v. Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Co., Ltd., the Supreme People’s Court of China’s first substantive determination of a FRAND license fee. This judgment is significant for its explicit recognition of the comparative license approach (CLA) as a methodology for assessing FRAND royalties, coupled with concrete guidelines for selecting truly comparable licenses. Equally important, the Court characterized FRAND licensing disputes as di yue guo shi (pre-contractual obligations, or culpa in contrahendo) under Article 500 of the Civil Code, establishing a structured framework for assessing both SEP holders’ and implementers’ faults during negotiations. By integrating fault assessment into damages apportionment, the judgment underscores that both parties must engage in good-faith negotiation efforts, potentially shifting Chinese FRAND litigation toward a more procedure-oriented model. This chapter further situates ACT v. Oppowithin the broader trajectory of Chinese SEP jurisprudence, compares it with other landmark cases, and identifies unresolved questions for future clarification by the SPC-ranging from the scope of FRAND-specific good faith, to the role of fault in damages calculation, to thresholds for “adequate negotiations.” Properly resolving these open issues will enhance the doctrinal coherence of Chinese FRAND law and its alignment with global SEP enforcement practices.