When China fined U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. a record $975 million last February for what it said were exorbitant patent-licensing fees, Chinese regulators signaled that there was a new target in their growing enforcement of the country's antimonopoly law: intellectual property.

“This is a trend,” says Wu Peng, managing partner at China's Zhong Lun Law Firm, who led a 20-lawyer team acting as Qualcomm's main counsel throughout the investigation. “There will be more and more antitrust cases involving intellectual property.”

While China's almost seven-year-old Antimonopoly Law states that the law will not apply to the proper use of IP rights, it does prohibit behaviors that “eliminate or restrict market competition by abusing their [IP] rights.” The question for lawyers and their clients is how regulators distinguish between the two.