Visited Shanghai and Shenzhen this week as part of a study tour co-organized by the Fordham IP Institute and AnJie Law Firm. The face-to-face meetings we had with judges, academics, lawyers, and in-house counsel were helpful in better understanding the reality of legal developments there as well as how they perceive developments in the United States. I was encouraged that despite the ongoing trade war between the two countries, people to people ties remain warm.

Fordham IP Institute Director Professor Hugh Hansen and I delivered public lectures at Shanghai Jiatong University KoGuan LawSchool and Peking University School of Transnational Law. Hugh spoke about IP and legal realism, including the central role of judges in making IP policy. I spoke about U.S. developments affecting AI and 5G, as well as the Oracle-Google case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.

We met with a good cross-section of the IP community in both cities, including judges from the Shanghai IP Court, academics and students from Fudan University Law School, East China University of Political Science and Law, Tongji University, Shenzhen University, Harvard Law School, Shanghai Jiatong University KoGuan LawSchool and Peking University School of Transnational Law, companies such as Huawei, Tencent, and FMC, as well as attorneys from Ladas & Parry, Bayes, AnJie, and Clifford Chance.