The group standard Guidelines for Patent Infringement Risk Assessment (T/CIPS 001 2026), for which Liu Shen participated in the drafting, has been officially approved and issued by the China Intellectual Property Society. As China's first standard document specially formulated for Freedom to Operate (FTO) assessments, it was initiated by the China Intellectual Property Society, which organized leading IP service providers and relevant enterprises across the industry for its joint development.
As one of the principal drafting organizations, Liu Shen & Associates assembled a dedicated project team. Partners ZHANG Xiang and LIU Guojun served as project leads, while partner XU Ruiqiao acted as a core contributor, engaging in the full cycle drafting process. Within the standard, Liu Shen took primary responsibility for the chapters on “Comparison Method for Invention and Utility Model Patents” and “Comparison Method for Design Patents”, and actively contributed to deliberations and revisions across other chapters. Drawing on substantial hands on experience from both backend patent infringement litigation matters and front end FTO practice, the firm offered substantive input and expertise to support the formulation and final publication of this standard.
Freedom to Operate (FTO) assessment covers technical deconstruction, infringement risk searching, patent screening, claim feature comparison and other procedures. Deployed ahead of critical business decisions including product launch, technical cooperation, investment and M&A transactions, FTO work identifies potential IP barriers in advance, facilitates responsive mitigation measures, reduces operational uncertainties and strengthens market competitiveness. Addressing real world pain points such as inconsistent workflows, ambiguous methodologies and non standardized utilization of assessment outputs in industry practice, this standard delivers a practical operational framework, and will foster greater standardization, systematization and professionalism of FTO practices in China.
