About

Safeguarding the smooth operation of Honeywell’s diverse portfolio of high-tech products is a significant in-house legal department, which is constantly busy with the company’s heavily regulated and complex supply chain. The company’s large and varied workforce also requires the team to work on a number of different issues, including matters of business importance such as high value and strategically important M&As. Jerry Xia is Honeywell’s deputy general counsel and chief IP counsel for Asia Pacific, and describes his 11-strong regional IP legal team as having made an enormous impact on the business. ‘The team has three cases selected on the “Top Ten IP Cases of the Year” by the Quality Brand Protection Committee in 2017-2018, the biggest winner among all multinational enterprises in China. In addition, the team also supported a few critical M&A projects for Honeywell in the region including the ever first software joint venture deal’, Xia explains. When highlighting the team’s internal culture, Xia says: ‘This team is sharp, self-driven and flexible from top to bottom so that it’s able to envision and come up with practical support for Honeywell’s global IP team, as well as [other] Honeywell businesses with its big step up from a global commercial and consumer product provider to an industrial software leader’. One nominating source also provided a glowing review of the team and its lawyers: ‘The team impressed me with its hard work and professionalism, and it plays a very famous and well-recognised role in all in-house IP teams in the Chinese legal market. Led by Jerry Xia, a creative and solution-oriented IP lawyer, the team members are knowledgeable about IP laws and practice in China. Enthusiasm is also one of the team’s most impressive traits’.