(Adopted at the 36th Executive Meeting of the State Council on March 28, 2001, promulgated by Decree No. 300 of the State Council of the People's Republic of China on April 2001, and effective as of the date of October 1, 2001)

Chapter I    General Provisions

Article 1.   These Regulations are formulated in order to protect the exclusive right of layout-design of integrated circuits, to encourage innovation of integrated circuits technology and to promote the development of science and technology.

Article 2.  For the purposes of these Regulations:
      (1) "integrated circuit" means semiconductor integrated circuit, that is, a product, in its intermediate or final form, which uses semiconductor material as its chip, in and/or on which two or more elements, at least one of which is an active element, and some or all of the interconnections are integrally formed and which is intended to perform a certain electronic function;
      (2) "layout-design of integrated circuit"(hereinafter referred to as layout-design) means the three-dimensional disposition of the two or more elements, at least one of which is an active element, and some or all of the interconnections of an integrated circuit, or such a three-dimensional disposition prepared for the manufacture of an integrated circuit;
      (3) "holder of the right of layout-design" means the natural person, the legal person or any other organization that, according to these Regulations, is entitled to the exclusive right of a layout-design; 
      (4) "reproduction" means the act of reproducing a layout-design or of  reproducing an integrated circuit incorporating the layout-design;
      (5) "commercial exploitation" means the act of importing, selling or otherwise distributing for commercial purposes a protected layout-design, or an integrated circuit incorporating such a layout-design, or an article incorporating such an integrated circuit.

Article 3.  Any layout-design created by a Chinese natural person, legal person or other organization shall be eligible for the exclusive right of layout-design in accordance with these Regulations.
      Any layout-design created by a foreigner shall, where it is first commercially exploited in the territory of the People's Republic of China, be eligible for the exclusive right of layout-design in accordance with these Regulations.
Any layout-design created by a foreigner shall be eligible for the exclusive right of layout-design in accordance with these Regulations, if the country to which the foreigner belongs has concluded an agreement with China to protect layout-designs or both the country to which the foreigner belongs and China are party to an international treaty concerning the protection of layout-designs.

Article 4.  Any layout-design which is to be protected shall be original in the sense that the layout-design is the result of the creator's own intellectual effort, and it is not  commonplace among creators of layout-designs and manufacturers of integrated circuits at the time of its creation.
Where a layout-design which is to be protected consists of several commonplace layout-designs, the combination of these layout-designs taken as a whole shall be in compliance with the requirements referred to in the preceding paragraph.

Article 5.   The protection of layout-designs under these Regulations shall not extend to ideas, procedures, methods of operations or mathematical concepts as such.

Article 6.  The intellectual property administration department of the State Council is responsible for the relevant administrative work concerning the exclusive right of layout-design in accordance with these Regulations.

Chapter II  Exclusive Right of Layout-design

Article 7.  The holder of the right of layout-design shall enjoy the following exclusive right:
(1) reproducing a protected layout-design in its entirety or any part thereof that complies with the requirement of originality;
(2) commercially exploiting a protected layout-design, an integrated circuit incorporating a protected layout-design, or an article incorporating such an integrated circuit.

Article 8.  The exclusive right of layout-design is acquired after its being registered with the intellectual property administration department of the State Council.
 Any unregistered layout-design shall not be protected under these Regulations.

Article 9. The exclusive right of layout-design shall belong to its creator, except as otherwise prescribed in these Regulations.
Where a layout-design is created according to the will and under the charge of a legal person or other organization, which shall bear responsibility for such layout-design, that legal person or other organization shall be the creator.
Where a layout-design is created by a natural person, that person shall be the creator.

Article 10.  Where a layout-design is created jointly by two or more natural persons, legal persons or other organizations, the ownership of the exclusive right shall be agreed upon by the joint creators; in the absence of such an agreement or where the agreement is not clear, the exclusive right shall be owned jointly by the creators.

Article 11.  Where a layout-design is created in execution of a commission, the ownership of the exclusive right shall be agreed upon by the person having  commissioned and the person being commissioned; in the absence of such an agreement or where the agreement is not clear, the exclusive right shall be owned by the person being commissioned.

Article 12.  The term of protection of the exclusive right of layout-design shall be 10 years counted from the date of filing an application for registration or from the date on which it was first commercially exploited anywhere in the world, whichever expires earlier. However, no matter whether it has been registered or commercially exploited, a layout-design shall no longer be protected under these Regulations 15 years after  the date of the completion of its creation.

 Article 13.  Where the exclusive right of layout-design belongs to a natural person, the exclusive right shall, after the death of the natural person and within the term of protection as prescribed in these Regulations, be transferred in accordance with the provisions of the Succession Law.
Where the exclusive right of a layout-design belongs to a legal person or other organization, the exclusive right shall, after the legal person or other organization is reorganized or ceases to exist and within the term of protection as prescribed in these Regulations, be owned by the legal person or other organization which succeeds to its rights and obligations; where there is no such legal person or other organization to succeed to its rights and obligations, the layout-design shall enter into the public domain.

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