Menghang Jiao is a senior legal counsel in the Beijing office of GEN Law Firm with over 10 years of practice experience. Mr. Jiao focuses on complex litigation involving trademarks, plant variety rights, trade secrets and unfair competition, with his practice extending to IP criminal and administrative enforcement and government regulatory investigation response. He is fully bilingual in Chinese and English. Cases he has handled have been selected for the Supreme People’s Court’s 50 Typical IP Cases in China, the Jiangsu High People’s Court’s Top 10 IP Cases, and the QBPC Top 10 IP Protection Cases, among other annual landmark cases selected by the highest and provincial-level courts and leading industry organizations.

Mr. Jiao has long served multiple Fortune 500 companies and industry-leading clients, and is skilled at coordinating enforcement strategies across civil litigation, administrative rights confirmation, and criminal enforcement proceedings to provide systematic protection for clients’ core intellectual property. In the field of seed industry IP protection, Mr. Jiao has achieved a series of landmark results, including obtaining approximately RMB 24.15 million in damages in a plant variety rights and trade secret infringement case, and successfully obtaining an extremely rare interim behavioral preservation order (“preliminary injunction”) in the seed industry. In trademark enforcement, he has successfully claimed punitive damages on multiple occasions on behalf of clients, with the highest single-case award reaching RMB 100 million. In trademark administrative proceedings, he has helped multiple internationally renowned brands obtain well-known trademark recognition, achieving cross-class protection.

In the area of government regulatory investigations, Mr. Jiao provides comprehensive legal services to multiple domestic and foreign enterprises, covering compliance consulting, crisis management, regulatory communication and litigation representation across product quality, environmental protection, customs supervision and other regulatory domains.

Publications

• Author, Landmark SPC Ruling Sets Important Precedents and Applies Punitive Damages in Plant Variety Rights Infringement Case, MONDAQ, August 2025

• Co-author, Supreme People’s Court Awards Unprecedented Rmb100 Million in Damages, World Trademark Review, October 2023

• Co-author, Chinese Courts Keep Refining Application of Punitive Damages in IP Cases, World Trademark Review, October 2022

• Co-author, Supreme People’s Court Releases New Rules on Jurisdiction over First-instance IP Cases, World Trademark Review, July 2022

External Lecturer, School of Law, Tianjin University

Plant Variety Rights and Trade Secrets

• Represented an international seed R&D enterprise in plant variety rights and trade secret infringement litigation involving hybrid corn parental breeding materials, obtaining approximately RMB 24.15 million in first-instance damages, one of the highest awards in plant variety rights disputes in recent years;

• Represented an international seed R&D enterprise in trade secret infringement litigation involving hybrid corn parental breeding materials, successfully obtaining an extremely rare interim behavioral preservation order (“preliminary injunction”) in the seed industry, together with a property preservation order of tens of millions of RMB;

• Provided full-chain seed industry IP protection services for multiple seed R&D enterprises, covering annual legal counsel, plant variety rights application consulting, planting-season infringing variety investigation, harvest-season warehouse criminal and administrative enforcement, and sales-end infringement governance.

  
  

Trademark Infringement and Unfair Competition Civil Litigation

• Handled multiple trademark infringement and unfair competition cases for a well-known security products group, in one of which the first-instance court applied punitive damages and ordered the defendant to compensate RMB 100 million (one of the highest awards in similar cases in China), selected for the SPC’s 50 Typical IP Cases, the Jiangsu High People’s Court’s Top 10 IP Cases, and the Jiangsu Court IP Judicial Protection Blue Book following the SPC’s second-instance judgment, with well-known trademark recognition obtained in multiple related trademark administrative proceedings;

• Represented a Fortune 500 chemical enterprise in litigation for trademark infringement and false advertising constituting unfair competition, with the court recognizing the plaintiff’s trademark as a well-known trademark on industrial chemicals and granting cross-class protection;

• Represented an international leading construction materials enterprise in trademark infringement litigation, with the court finding willful infringement with serious circumstances and applying triple punitive damages, ordering the defendant to pay substantial economic losses;

• Represented a well-known internet mapping service enterprise in an unfair competition dispute involving third-party illegal scraping and use of its premium data products, obtaining RMB 12.5 million in damages on behalf of the client, the case was selected as a Beijing IP Court 2025 Annual Case;

• Represented an internationally renowned professional film and television equipment manufacturer in unfair competition litigation, successfully establishing that the product’s distinctive color combination and product model combination constituted influential trade dress, with the case selected as a QBPC Top 10 IP Protection Case.

Trademark Administrative Rights Confirmation and Well-Known Trademark Recognition

• Represented an international leading construction materials enterprise in filing multiple trademark invalidation applications, with the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board recognizing the cited trademarks as well-known trademarks on multiple occasions, invalidating the disputed trademarks accordingly and achieving cross-class protection;

• Represented a well-known security products group in obtaining well-known trademark recognition in multiple trademark administrative and subsequent administrative litigation proceedings, with the Beijing IP Court granting cross-class protection, effectively preventing market imitation and free-riding on the well-known brand.

IP Criminal and Administrative Enforcement

• Represented an internationally renowned professional film and television equipment manufacturer in successfully registering a color combination trademark and conducting anti-counterfeiting enforcement and trademark infringement litigation nationwide;

• Represented an international leading construction materials enterprise in conducting counterfeit product source investigations nationwide, coordinating with public security authorities to take criminal enforcement actions against infringing distributors;

• Represented an international leading advanced livestock product management enterprise in conducting counterfeit product production and sales source investigations nationwide, coordinating with public security authorities to take criminal enforcement actions against infringing parties;

• Assisted an internationally renowned spirits brand in conducting anti-counterfeiting enforcement actions and developing brand protection strategies, including providing strategic proposals and evidence collection advice on well-known trademark recognition.

Government Regulatory Investigation and Crisis Response

• Represented a European enterprise in responding to investigations by market supervision authorities and public security authorities regarding product quality issues, providing full-process legal services from compliance consulting, crisis management, regulatory communication to litigation representation, ultimately assisting the client in achieving a satisfactory outcome;

• Represented a joint venture in responding to a special inspection of its production facility by the inspection team of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, intervening when the enterprise faced significant risk of penalties. By systematically organizing the enterprise’s historical compliance records, formulating response strategies and conducting extensive negotiations with government authorities, ultimately assisted the enterprise in avoiding administrative penalties and further facilitated negotiations on factory relocation, successfully securing tens of millions of RMB in government relocation compensation;

• Represented multiple domestic and foreign enterprises in handling administrative inspections, administrative hearings, administrative reconsideration and administrative litigation matters involving product quality, environmental protection and customs supervision.

Time-Honored Brand Protection

• Assisted multiple enterprises in successfully obtaining China Time-Honored Brand and provincial-level Time-Honored Brand recognition, providing legal support for the inheritance and development of corporate brands.