David Wei Zhao

Co-Managing Editor of SINOTALKS®

David Wei Zhao, a Co-Managing Editor of SINOTALKS®, has drawn on his extensive experiences as a Chinese legal professional and an associate managing editor of the China Guiding Cases Project (“CGCP”) at Stanford Law School to help SINOTALKS® grow rapidly since its founding in 2021.

Mr. Zhao has played different roles in China to apply his legal knowledge.  As a civil and commercial lawyer in Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan Province in southwestern China, Mr. Zhao specializes in providing legal services to various clients, including well-known asset management corporations, major Chinese state-owned enterprises, and banks in China.  He also previously served as a clerk to a deputy chief judge of the First Civil Tribunal within the Wuhua District People’s Court in Kunming City and taught civil law and procedure at a judicial police vocational college in Yunnan Province.

During his time serving as an associate managing editor of the CGCP, Mr. Zhao helped ensure the high quality of the project’s publications and activities and co-authored a number of representative English and Chinese publications, including: (1) Reasons That Guiding Case No. 9 “Will No Longer Be for Reference and Imitation”: An In-Depth Discussion of Relevant Cases and Authoritative Provisions; (2) An In-Depth Analysis of a Guiding Case That Has Been Used in Hundreds of Subsequent Cases: Is Guiding Case No. 15’s Ground-Breaking Determination of Commingled Personalities of Affiliated Companies a Success?; and (3) Pursuing Legal Certainty under an Uncertain System: How Chinese Lawyers and Judges Use Intellectual Property Guiding Cases.  His latest publications include a SINOTALKS®’s publication titled Intellectual Property-Related Guiding Cases: Trends of Their Use in Subsequent Cases & Implications for China’s Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property Rights.

Mr. Zhao graduated from Yunnan University and holds a Master of Economic Law degree.  He is interested in the study of law and society, as well as the development of Guiding Cases in China and their impact abroad.

For more information about this author’s analysis, please read:

SinoInsights
Intellectual Property-Related Guiding Cases: Trends of Their Use in Subsequent Cases & Implications for China’s Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property Rights

How can the development of China’s Case Guidance System promote the country’s judicial protection of intellectual property rights, helping achieve the goals set forth in the Plan for the Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in People’s Courts (2021-2025)?

Guiding Case No. 235
Guiding Case No. 235: Summary and Principles on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments

In November 2024, China’s Supreme People’s Court released Guiding Case No. 235 to illustrate its new, proactive approach to recognizing and enforcing foreign judgments.

Determining Damages in Trade Secret Cases: China’s Landmark Case vs. U.S. Experiences
Determining Damages in Trade Secret Cases: China’s Landmark Case vs. U.S. Experiences

Judicial protection of intellectual property (“IP”) rights in China has been perceived to be limited because, among other problems, the amounts of damages awarded by Chinese courts in IP infringement cases have historically been small. However, this state of affairs may be changing, as China’s Supreme People’s Court (“SPC”) rendered a landmark judgment in a case involving large-scale infringement of trade secrets, allowing the victims to receive an amount equivalent to almost USD 90 million as compensation. As analyzed by Nathan Harpainter and David Zhao, Co-Managing Editors of SINOTALKS®, the innovative approach taken by the SPC to calculate the damages in the landmark case is essentially based on the concept of “unjust enrichment”. The steps followed by the SPC to do the calculation are helpful but inadequate. To help China develop its jurisprudence in this important area, the two co-authors discuss related U.S. experiences.

For more information about SINOTALKS®‘s publications, please visit:

  • SINOTALKS® In Brief
    Written by Dr. Mei Gechlik, SINOTALKS® In Brief is a newsletter that demystifies China law, policy, and business to help readers craft evidence-based strategies for their China-related issues.
  • SinoExpress™
    SinoExpress™ covers significant international developments and related regulatory changes in China.
  • SinoInsights™
    The SinoInsights series features analyses contributed by judges, lawyers, and other professionals as well as high-quality translations of select court cases in China to share key legal developments in or related to China.