China Amends Guide for Integrated Circuit Layout Design Examination and Administrative Adjudication

WISECODE Take

The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) issued Announcement No. 695 on September 30, 2026, announcing that the revised "Guide for Integrated Circuit Layout Design Examination and Administrative Adjudication" will take effect on October 30, 2026. Many business owners mistakenly believe that chip designs can only be protected by patents, thereby overlooking layout design registration. This revision repeals the trial guide issued on April 8, 2019, clarifying the administrative adjudication mechanism. This means chip design owners now have a faster administrative channel to resolve copying disputes in China, similar to allocating liquid assets in a financial portfolio to balance slow-moving equities like patents. For Taiwanese IC designers or OEMs operating in China, this update provides clearer enforcement rules, while pure software developers or terminal assemblers remain unaffected. To address this, we recommend first auditing chips sold in China to evaluate supplementary layout registrations, and second, analyzing procedural differences in the new guide to prepare for potential infringement claims.