While the increasing integration between Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong Province in China may create uncertainty about the future of intellectual property enforcement between what is now three separate jurisdictions, Hong Kong has successfully secured its place in the current landscape. 

In December 2024, the Hong Kong Intellectual Property Department announced that it had received its 1000th original grant patent system application. This milestone was reached just five years since the launch of the OGP system in 2019. Prior to December 2019, most patent applications in Hong Kong came via the re-registration route, using patent owners to extend the protection of existing China, European Union or United Kingdom patents at a low cost without undergoing a separate substantive examination. 

The OGP system has proved popular among both local and non-local applicants: local applicants have accounted for 46.7 percent of applications. Of non-local applicants, 235 have come from South Korea, 137 from China, 42 from the United States, 40 from Japan and 21 from Taiwan. A vast majority of the 173 OGP grants have come in the area of electricity (79.8 percent); mechanical engineering has accounted for 12.7 percent, and chemistry for 7.5 percent. 

While Hong Kong maintains its own IP regime, cooperation between Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong Province is continuing. As part of the Greater Bay Area, the three jurisdictions recently hosted the sixth GBA IP Competition, designed to accelerate the cultivation and strategic layout of high-value patents across Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong, as well as to foster collaborative development in patent industrialization. Since the inaugural event in 2019, the competition has attracted 4,655 participating projects, with 1,100 projects recognized as Top 100, and 231 receiving gold, silver, and excellence awards. These projects involve over 25,000 patents, with participating projects generating revenues of Rmb6.78 trillion (US$942.9 billion) and patent assets valued at Rmb24.563 billion (US$3.4 billion). 

Recently, Hong Kong and China inked a deal that gives both jurisdictions the ability to enforce intellectual property judgments from courts in either place, giving what Hong Kong law firm Deacons called “a special position in the resolution of cross-border disputes.” 

The Mainland Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters (Reciprocal Enforcement) Ordinance came into effect on January 29, 2024. It applies to judgments rendered on or after that date in mainland China (which excludes Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) and makes provisions for:  

• Enforcing a mainland judgment in Hong Kong, by way of application to the Hong Kong court for registration of the judgment; and 

• Facilitating the recognition and enforcement of a Hong Kong judgment in the mainland, by way of application to the Hong Kong court for a certified copy of the judgment and certificate. 

It is against this backdrop that we turned to IP professionals in the region in order to understand better what clients need today. Asia IP asked a large number of professionals – mostly in-house counsel and corporate legal managers – what they were looking for from their legal service providers. From their answers, we have compiled our list of Hong Kong’s IP Experts, those lawyers who understand just what their clients need and are able to provide them with the best practical advice.  

Hong Kong has long been a hub for global law firms, and those IP firms and practices are well-represented on our list, with Baker McKenzie (Isabella F.C. Liu, Shih Yann Loo, Maria Smith and Loke-Khoon Tan) and Bird & Bird (Ted Chwu, Matthew Laight, Hank Leung and Alison Wong) each placing four lawyers on our list, and Rouse (Rachel Tan, Chris Vale and Adelaide Yu) with three lawyers on the list. Global firms Clifford Chance, DLA Piper, Eversheds Sutherland, Hogan Lovells, Jones Day, Mayer Brown, MinterEllison, Nixon Peabody CWL and Simmons & Simmons are also represented on the list. 

But Hong Kong has also been a place where local law firms can thrive, and their inclusion on our list – and the numbers by which they are represented – is proof of that. ELLALAN (Ella Cheong, Alan Chiu, Rosita Li and Kenny Wong) placed four lawyers on the list, while Deacons (Charmaine Koo, Patsy Lau and Catherine Zheng) and East IP (Dan Plane, Joe Simone and Helen Tang) each placed three. Wilkinson & Grist (Andrea Fong and Annie Tsoi) has two lawyers on our list. Fifteen more local practices are represented, from DeLab Consulting to Gallant, from P.C. Woo & Co. to Oldham Li & Nie, from SFKS CK Kwong to Twiggy MH Liu Law Office. 

Our survey includes only those lawyers working at law firms in Hong Kong. 

Most of the lawyers named to our list have multiple practice specialties. Many of them are litigators, while others concentrate on prosecution work or provide strategic advice.  

All of them have something in common: they are Asia IP’s IP Experts for Hong Kong. – GREGORY GLASS 

Hong Kong’s IP Experts is based solely on independent editorial research conducted by Asia IP. As part of this project, we turned to thousands of in-house counsel in Hong Kong, China, Asia and around the world, as well as Hong Kong- and China-focused partners at international law firms, and asked them to nominate private-practice lawyers, including foreign legal consultants, advisers and counsel.  

The final list reflects the nominations received combined with the input of the editorial team at Asia IP, which has more than 50 years of collective experience in researching and understanding the legal market in Hong Kong. 

All private practice intellectual property lawyers working at law firms in Hong Kong were eligible for inclusion in the nomination process; there were no fees or any other requirements for inclusion. 

The names of our 50 IP Experts are published here. Each IP Expert was given the opportunity to include their biography and contact details in print and on our website, for which a fee was charged.