Conflict of Laws.net has posted a new translation of the Statute on the Application of Laws over Foreign-Related Civil Relations of the People’s Republic of China, which goes into effect on April 1, 2011. I was most interested in its provisions on choice of law with regard to IP issues and in arbitration. In the IP arena, the statute provides that the lex loci protectionis governs questions of ownership, content, and infringement, but that the parties may choose the law applicable to a transfer or license of an IP right, and that in the absence of such a choice, the ordinary conflict of law principles applicable in contract cases will apply. This scheme is broadly compatible with other leading IP conflict of laws regimes.

In the arbitration arena, the statute provides that the law of the seat of the arbitration will govern the arbitration absent a choice of law, but that the parties may make another choice of law if they wish.

From the Blogatory shameless self-promotion department: my colleague David Evans and I have written a chapter on choice of law in international IP arbitration, to be published in a forthcoming book on international IP arbitration edited by Thomas Halket. The chapter covers the major arbitration statutes, the rules of several leading institutional arbitral tribunals, and the major scholarly projects relating to the conflict of laws in intellectual property matters, including the ALI Principles, the CLIP Project, and Japan’s Transparency Proposals.