Morgan & Finnegan is First Intellectual Property Firm to Open a Shanghai Office; Chinese Companies Will Receive Full IP Services and Foreign Businesses Advice on Managing and Enforcing IP in China

Business Wire, March 16, 2006

NEW YORK -- Morgan & Finnegan, L.L.P., one of the oldest and most successful intellectual property law firms, has opened an office in Shanghai, China. The office is staffed by two partners, Maria C.H. Lin, a veteran IP attorney with more than twenty years of patent prosecution and litigation experience, and William G.W. Hu, who specializes in mergers and acquisitions and corporate and securities matters.

The new office assists Chinese companies that seek to expand into the United States. Morgan & Finnegan provides a full range of services in the intellectual property area, including procurement of patents and trademark registrations in the US Patent and Trademark Office, enforcement of patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets in U.S. courts, and defense against charges of intellectual property infringement in the courts and International Trade Commission (ITC). Morgan & Finnegan also works with Chinese companies to obtain venture capital and other funding, and provides legal services relating to mergers and acquisitions, corporate structure and governance and securities.

"China's growth as a nation and an economy is being fueled by its success in innovation," said Ms. Lin, who was born in Yunnan, China, raised in Hong Kong and has served clients for more than 25 years from New York. "The timing is right to assist businesses in China with opportunities in the U.S. and the West, as well as to support companies with their expansion into China. Morgan & Finnegan works closely with a diverse client base."

Ms. Lin has been involved in the development of IP laws in China since 1979, and has provided advice not only on IP laws but on the cultural and social aspects of doing business in China. She is fluent in Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese and Szechuanese) and advised Mr. Ren Jianxin, former President of the People's Supreme Court, regarding IP laws. She also served as Chair of the Special Committee on China for both the NYIPLA and the AIPLA and worked with Mr. Jianxin on the proposed draft patent law of the PRC in the early 1980s.

William Hu has a diverse background in international transactions. He worked as outside and in-house counsel for numerous international clients in a variety of fields, including mergers and acquisitions, technology licensing, finance, general corporate law, intellectual property, security matters, private placements and international trade matters. He is native Chinese and is fluent in Mandarin and Shanghai dialects.

U.S. clients with whom Morgan & Finnegan is working in China include Caterpillar Inc, United Biomedical, Inc, Transys Electronics Inc., Danaher Corporation and King Industries. The firm has helped both with business expansion and in setting up innovation centers in China.

Matters addressed by Morgan & Finnegan from Shanghai have included due diligence guidance on acquisitions, establishing IP protection policies and procedures, counseling on ITC investigations, IP, licensing and financial agreements in both English and Chinese, and advice on Chinese policies and laws that relate to technology transfers into and out of China.

The firm's clients in China include Henghou Trading Company of Macau and Asian Sourcing International Inc. of Shanghai, to whom MF provides assistance in building a portfolio of U.S. and other IP rights. MF's Shanghai office also works with a number of Chinese law firms on the acquisition of US IP rights. For China-based clients, MF can provide in-depth knowledge and information in Chinese, without the need of translation.

MF's Shanghai office is located in Aetna Towers in Gubei, a newly developed commercial district of Shanghai, ADDRESS 107 Zunyi Road, Aetna Towers, Suite 408, Gubei, Shanghai 200051. Telephone: 86-21-6237-5322.

Maria C.H. Lin has a diverse and international intellectual property law practice that includes domestic and international patent procurement, trademark and copyright registration, licensing and complex high technology litigation. She joined the firm in 1983. Prior to becoming an attorney, Ms. Lin was a research scientist at DuPont and CibaGeigy, now Novartis, and also worked at Celanese Corporation. Ms. Lin has been involved in the procurement of patents for several significant commercial inventions, including REOPRO, HCV diagnostics and HIV therapeutics. She participated in the drafting of the Patent Law of the People's Republic of China of 1984 and its subsequent amendment in 1993.

Morgan & Finnegan, L.L.P., founded in 1893, is one of the leading intellectual property law firms in the U.S. The firm has more than 100 lawyers, most with degrees in science and technology, and Ph.D. scientific and technical advisors. Industries in which the firm represents clients include electronics, computers and software, life sciences including medical devices and pharmaceuticals, consumer and industrial products, and e-commerce. Morgan & Finnegan lawyers regularly appear in district courts throughout the U.S. and argue appeals at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The firm's ITC practice based in Washington, D.C. has been bolstered by the addition of Kent Stevens as a partner in its D.C. office. Mr. Stevens, the Immediate Past President of the ITC Trial Lawyer's Association, has been involved in numerous Section 337 ITC investigations over the past 18 years as counsel for complainants and respondents, as senior trial counsel for the ITC's office of Unfair Import Investigations, and as an attorney-advisor in the ITC's Office of Administrative Law Judges. Morgan & Finnegan recently successfully represented Bombardier in an ITC 337 investigation brought by Yamaha, one of the largest patent cases ever litigated in the ITC.