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Andrew Cobden - Hogan Lovells
Andrew Cobden is an experienced IP counsel and solicitor-advocate at Hogan Lovells, a specialist in resolving IP-related issue in various highly technical sectors (mobile telephones, pharmaceuticals). He also has a deep understanding of the IP environment in China, advising companies on IP licensing through joint ventures and other licensing agreements. His work spans three jurisdictions, having previously worked in London and Tokyo.
Published: 23 Mar 2026, by Wilson Lam and Kong Ching Ping
1. How was it like working in London, Tokyo, and now, Hong Kong? What drove your decision to relocate every time you had the chance? When I finished my law degree in Australia, I decided to work in London for two years and travel around Europe. My first job was in the IP team at Hogan Lovells, and I ended up staying with the firm in London for 17 years. London offered great experience working on complex litigation and big IP deals. At that time, there was a growing number of Europe-wide IP disputes, particularly involving pharmaceutical and mobile telephone patents. I worked on a few patent litigations for a Japanese client while I was in London, which involved travelling to Tokyo. In the 1980s, Japan was a leader in many areas of innovation. The firm decided to put people with IP experience there closer to Japanese clients and to represent Hogan Lovell’s global IP practice in the Japanese market. I was given this opportunity to work in Tokyo, and I jumped at this chance to work in another country. Moving to Hong Kong was also under similar circumstances. Many foreign companies had opened manufacturing plants in China by the early 2000s, and Chinese companies were making more sophisticated products. This, in turn, created a demand for IP lawyers to act for large foreign clients. I was asked to move from Tokyo to either Shanghai or Hong Kong. Since the Hong Kong legal system is based on common law and English is widely spoken, it was much easier for me to practice here. Thus, I came to Hong Kong about 18 years ago and have stayed here since.
Intellectual Property (IP) in China
2. You have robust experience working under China's IP regulatory landscape. In 2025, CNIPA issued a report announcing a roadmap to become a "Strong IP Nation". Based on your experience, what are some improvements that must be implemented in order for China to achieve its stated objective? There has been an increased awareness of the importance of in IP protection in China, partly due to China’s move from manufacturing that follows product developments from the West, to much more local technological innovation and a shift to manufacturing of high-tech products. The current initiatives set by the Central Government reflect this sentiment. For pharmaceuticals, this includes the implementation of patent term extension and patent linkage, which Hong Kong still currently lacks. That said, there are still some challenges that China needs to overcome in order to become a more IP intensive nation. China adopts a continental civil law system, with judge-led litigation and no discovery process. Since court decisions in China are not binding, judgments usually provide less guidance on legal issues for future cases. Judicial Interpretations issued by higher courts fill in some of the gaps. Without an obligatory discovery process, parties are not obliged to disclose all relevant documents, but usually only disclose documents that are helpful to their own cases, which can create wide factual differences or gaps in the two parties’ argued cases. In a patent case, for example, the owner of a patent covering complex technology may have difficulties in proving that its patent is infringed, since defendants are not obliged to provide all documents relevant to the court proceedings, which differs from the common law system.
3. What are some strategies that clients should adopt when approaching the Chinese market? Ten years ago, IP issues could be a genuine concern for foreign manufacturers attempting to enter the Chinese market. However, nowadays, there is more incentive to provide IP protection in order to develop innovation, both regulation and enforcement of the IP regime has become more proactive and advanced. IP problems can often be avoided when the foreign company finds the right Chinese company to partner with.
IP Financing
4. China has been conducting IP collateralisation since 2009, but HK only recently launched an IP financing sandbox in 2025. What are the opportunities in IP financing and why is HK only starting now? I believe people looking for financing would generally be supportive of using IP as collateral for loans, so the IP financing sandbox seems to be a good idea. However, there are still some questions about how the sandbox will operate. Since this is a Hong Kong Government initiative, it is likely the initiative will be focused on Hong Kong IP. For example, the qualitative patent evaluation service is only available for the Hong Kong patents of the participating company. In practice, companies wanting to use their IP as security may also want to include their Chinese or overseas IP as part of the collateral. In practical terms, however, it will be more complicated to assess and value a company’s international IP in that way. The Government is proposing to provide a subsidy for small companies to get a report from an independent patent valuation firm. In theory, they could value both the Hong Kong and any Chinese patent, because the principles that they would use for valuation would presumably apply to both Hong Kong and China, and perhaps other places. But because this initiative is still very recent, I understand why they are trying to first limit it to Hong Kong.
5. What are some inherent risks in IP financing? How IP financing generally works is that a company agrees to collateralise their IPs for a loan, in which they either grant a charge over the IP or they mortgage the IP and transfer it to the lender or to a special purpose vehicle (SPV) that will hold legal title to the IP until the loan is repaid. Granting a charge may be easier, but you need to consider the law of the country where the IP exists to ensure that the concept of charges is recognised under that law and any formalities, such as registration requirements, are complied with. There are a few challenges with using IP as collateral. First, there is an IP valuation issue. Suppose a company like Apple decided to collateralise their trademark. Clearly, this is very valuable to Apple. However, if there was a default and a receiver or lender wanted to sell the trademark to another company, it may be much less valuable to the trademark purchaser’s business. Thus, IP valuation can be subjective and highly dependent on the IP’s value to potential purchasers. Second, IP as security can be very illiquid. Suppose the securitised IP was a patent that covers a complex industrial process for making a biopharmaceutical product. Only buyers with the industrial capability and equipment to manufacture that product could utilise that patent, which may severely limit the number of potential buyers. Third, some IP, such as patents, has a limited life and is always open to a possible invalidity challenge. So, a lender should carry out qualitative checks on the IP rights. Fourth, for many high-tech companies, their IPs may be 80%-90% of their company’s value, so to a certain extent, these companies are already using their IP as collateral when they borrow money from banks in return for putting a charge over all their company’s business assets. Specific IP financing to them may be largely redundant. These reasons may result in lenders being cautious about IP financing, unless they are confident about IP valuation. However, there are positive reasons why companies would consider IP financing. For many companies that develop and make products, the company’s IP can be its most valuable asset. Sometimes the company’s IP on its own can almost be as valuable as the company itself. Using the company’s IP as security to borrow money to fund the business, especially in the early life of the business, may be the best option.
Patent cliff
6. We know that China is aiming to finish trials on certain pharmaceutical products (e.g., semaglutides) to compete with foreign producers amid the 2026-2032 patent cliff. What legal strategies can patent owners employ to protect themselves? A patent cliff can occur when there is a fundamental scientific discovery, say of a drug compound, by a university or research lab, and pharmaceutical companies all race to patent certain drug formulations or drug combinations or medical uses based on the discovery, which they in turn patent. Under the TRIPs Agreement, a standard patent term is for 20 years. In most countries, it may be possible to extend protection for up to another five years by using pharmaceutical patent term extensions or supplementary protection certificates. Often we see a wholesale expiration of patents for certain blockbuster drugs based on the original discovery in a 5-year window, around 20 years after the fundamental discovery was made. There are ways patent owners can maintain some level of protection beyond the cliff. First, as mentioned, is patent term extension. After a company applies for a patent, it must undergo arduous clinical trials to obtain regulatory (e.g., FDA) approval. This can take up to 10 or 15 years. So, to promote pharmaceutical innovation, many jurisdictions such as the US, Europe and Mainland China, allow companies to extend their patent terms for up to 5 extra years. This can offer some additional protection, though Hong Kong does not have patent term extension. Another strategy is to apply for follow-on patents, which are patents built on the key patent but with modification or advances, such as new medical uses or uses in combination with other drugs, to fulfil the originality and inventiveness threshold. These patents may be registered two to five years or longer after the key patent, and will offer extra protection to certain aspects of the key invention even after the key patent expires. However, these follow-on patents may be more vulnerable to an invalidity attack by competitors for lack of originality or inventiveness if they are too similar to the original patent. 7. Since the patent cliff in China arrives sooner (2026) than US/EU (2032), how would it affect your "freedom to operate" advice for generic companies racing to market when the original patent is still effective overseas? This is the result of China only recently introducing patent term extensions for new pharmaceutical compounds. Patent owners can only pay attention to markets outside China where they still have protection to ensure that no biosimilar drugs spill into the markets with protection prematurely.
IP practice under the age of AI
8. What is your take on AI authorship, should AI generated materials be protected under IP? Under copyright law, for there to be copyright in the work, the work must be original. To have originality, the work must not be copied from another work, but it only needs a fairly minimal amount of human creativity. The need to have human input is tied up with the concept of originality so in many countries an AI-generated work, without significant human involvement, cannot have copyright protection. A distinction is made between AI-generated works and AI-assisted works, which may be eligible for copyright protection. But in Hong Kong, a work that is computer-generated without any human author can have copyright protection. This is unusual, but Hong Kong followed the UK on this issue, so a computer-generated work can have copyright protection. For AI-generated works, if copyright protection is allowed, there is the question of who should own the copyright. Should it be the person who input the prompts, the creator of the AI model or the person or people who created or selected the AI training material? These are difficult issues and the answer may depend on the facts in each case. 9. How has AI affected the IP practice specifically? AI has affected IP legal practice in two main ways. First, we receive many questions from clients concerning AI and IP law. These can cover many issues such as the ownership of AI created works, infringement of copyright in materials used for AI learning and whether inventions that result from projects that use AI are patentable. Second, most lawyers are now using AI more in their daily work. I think most law firms are in the process of introducing AI into different areas of work. Most people use Copilot and some may use AI tools like Harvey. There are some AI tools for lawyers being developed in Hong Kong such as Casebyte. The extent to which people use AI is largely up to the individual. They may ask questions to the AI tool about legal topics and see what answer comes up. You wouldn't use the output without checking it and giving it further thought. Some people use AI to assist with drafting documents, preparing chronologies and as part of document review for litigation. There are confidentiality issues about using public AI tools. 10. How should young lawyers position themselves in this new age of AI? Every new area of technology that comes along requires lawyers to adjust. First you need to learn how best to use it and what are its limitations. It’s probably a better time to be a young lawyer because getting rid of some mechanical or repetitive work by using AI is probably not a bad thing. But you still need to know the basics and not become overly reliant on AI. Lawyers still need to learn court requirements for bundles, what needs to go into a chronology, etc. but now lawyers can learn how to best use the AI tool to do these tasks, and how to use it without diminishing the quality of their work. I think young lawyers have certain advantages because they're starting out their careers with all this now becoming available. They'll probably be able to adapt to it more quickly than people who have been working in a particular way for a longer period of time. AI should make young lawyers focus on the things which AI can't do, so you can focus more on the work that requires real human intelligence and judgment.