Practice areas

Competition & antitrust; Intellectual property; Technology, media and telecommunications; Entertainment & sports

Introduction

Rong Chao has been focusing on the field of intellectual property, involving culture, sports, film and television, entertainment, artwork and other industries, especially in the media and sports for many years. His clients include the Chinese Football Association Super League, CBA, China Sports Media, NBA China, WBA, Osports, LeSports, Huayi Brothers Media Group, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, PPTV, Sina, ROSAT, Edko Film, and Irena. Rong has acted as legal counsel for the Chinese Super League, CBA League, CCTV International, Sina, Huayi Brothers and many other high-profile clients. In terms of litigation, he specialises in handling cutting-edge, difficult and major cases involving IP and unfair competition law, and has represented a number of highly influential projects and cases, including the 2016-2020 Chinese Super League TV public signal production and copyright project (RMB8 billion Chinese Super League broadcast rights project), the rights defence case in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games new media live broadcast, the case of Sina v Phoenix on Chinese Super League event, the case of fischer scientific model works, and “Black Cat and Gourd Boy” poster case of copyright transformative use. The cases above were selected into the top 10 cases by courts and professional institutions at all levels.

During his practice, Rong has received several prestigious awards. He has been awarded the 4th Shanghai Excellent Young Lawyer in 2011 and an Excellent Young Lawyer in Jing’an District in 2007-2008. He used to be a delegate of the 9th Shanghai Lawyers’ Congress and a member of the Jing’an District Lawyers Working Committee. Currently, he is the director of the Sports Law Research Institution of the Shanghai Law Society, a member of the Professional Sports and Law Commission of the Shanghai Bar Association. In 2021, Rong was chosen among 2021 ALB China top 15 IP lawyers.

While focusing on practice, Rong is also deeply involved in academic research. He is responsible for compiling the chapter on intellectual property rights in sports in chapter 8 of the textbook Introduction to Sports Law published by the China University of Political Science and Law, and he is the main participant of the key decision and consultation project of the China General Administration of Sport “Research on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Media Broadcasting of National Teams”. Besides, he wrote the articles “An Investigation into the Rights of Timed Online Broadcasting – Only in the Context of Cable Information Network Distribution”, “The Legal Protection of Broadcast of Sports Events in Internet Era — A Review of the First Instance of Sina Internet Information Service v Tianying Jiuzhou Network Technology”, “Research on Legal Issues of identifying Three-dimensional Model Works: A Deep Analysis of the Copyright Infringement Case of Fischertechnik”, “Discussion on the Feasibility of Competitive Athletes’ Ownership of Performer’s Rights” , which were separately published in many authoritative journals and WeChat official account, including Chinese Copyright, Electronics Intellectual Property, “Zhi Chan Li”, and “Wolers Kluwer”.

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