Watson & Band Law Offices

Firm overview:

Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Shanghai, Watson & Band has grown into an integrated legal and IP-services provider, offering full-service law firm support alongside dedicated IP agency capabilities (via its IP agent arm). 

The firm maintains a broad domestic and international footprint, with branch offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, Harbin, Lanzhou, Yantai, Guangzhou, Suzhou, Zhengzhou, Chengdu, Nanning, Kunming, Tokyo and San Francisco. Watson & Band’s IP practice spans agency/prosecution, enforcement, litigation and commercial-IP strategy across sectors including chemistry, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, machinery, electronics, telecommunications, optical physics, automation and metallic materials.

The firm is recognised for its cross-border reach and for being one of China’s longer-standing firms in the IP domain handling “firsts” in Chinese IP jurisprudence, for example, the first patent infringement case between two foreign companies, and the first Japanese-plaintiff vs Chinese-defendant case.

Team overview:

The IP team at Watson & Band is underpinned by a large technical-legal cohort: over 300 professionals including lawyers, patent and trademark attorneys, engineers, university professors, scientific researchers and senior consultants.

Key figures include Yizhou Liu (also known as Joe Liu), who serves as secretary-general of the firm’s management board and specialises in IP rights and commercial dispute resolution. Another senior name is Jianguo Huang, a litigation specialist noted for representing Fortune 500 clients; likewise Hua Xiao (PhD in information optics) and Liming Zhang (engineering background) are recognised as key patent-practice members. 

The team is structured to support both prosecution and contentious work: for litigation/disputes, the firm forms special task teams on a case-by-case basis (complete with investigation and evidence-gathering units.