International Law

Brand Politics: China Should Take Advantage of Chinese Design

Posted on March 12, 2010
"Chinese companies still copy a lot of foreign design. The most important thing for China is that its businesses learn the importance of design and start designing for themselves." Read the whole article 'Brand Politics', in which yours truly was interviewed by Adam Smith for World Trademark Review here (pdf).

China's New Article 4 Copyright Law: Censored Works Are Copyrighted Too

Posted on March 04, 2010
How would China change its article 4 Copyright Law after the panel decision in the World Trade Organization's Dispute Settlement (DS 362) case determined that that provision was not compatible with China's obligations under the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works?IP Dragon's friend Rogier Creemers sheds light on the matter:"Following the Panel Report in the China - Intellectual Property Rights case (DS 362), the Chinese Copyright Law has been slightly revised...

In The Year of The Tigger: What Makes A Real Winnie The Pooh?

Posted on February 22, 2010
How to tell real from fake?On top: real Winnie the Pooh, including a laser hologram of Walt Disney. Below: fake Winnie the Pooh, without a laser hologram of Walt Disney. The counterfeit one is on offer in Wanchai, Hong Kong for 30 HK dollar (about 3 euro) and is tailor made for Chinese new year (good year's wishes and two plush oranges)...

Beijing Subsidies for Foreign Patents: Allowed Or Not? Smart Or Not?

Posted on February 22, 2010
October 9, 2009 the Beijing Intellectual Property Office, subsidiary of SIPO for the Beijing Municipality promulgated a circular on Applying for Special Funds for Financing Patent Applications in Foreign Countries.It stated:"Each United Concerned,According to the requirements of the State Council concerning the implementation of national intellectual proeprty strategy, in order to support domestic applicants who submit patent applications in foreign countries, and protect their own innovations, recently the State Intellectual Property Office will cooperate with the Ministry of Finance to finance special funds for patent applications in foreign countries...

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China Higher and Higher in PCT Applications' Heaven

Posted on February 09, 2010
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) published statistics of the number of Patent Convention Treaty (international patent) applications worldwide. China's PCT applications from 2008 to 2009 rose an estimated 29.7%, to 7,946 applications, estimated for 2009...

Chinese Acceptance Of and Resistance Against Global Copyright Law

Posted on February 04, 2010
Jia Lu, affiliated with Tsinghua University and Ian Weber, affiliated with University of Southern Queensland, Australia wrote an interesting paper called: 'Internet Piracy Software in China: A User Analysis of Resistance to Global Software Copyright Enforcement'...

How To Acquire IP in China? Alan Adcock Gives The Steps

Posted on February 04, 2010
Alan Adcock, deputy director of Thai law firm Tilleke & Gibbins, has worked before for Lovells and Rouse & Co. International in both Shanghai and Hong Kong, wrote the article: '5 Essential Steps to Acquiring IP in China'.1. Identifying the technology;2...

IPR Jurisdiction: Third Civil Division of Haining Municipal People's Court Specialises in Copyright and Trademark Disputes

Posted on February 03, 2010
Haining Municipal People's Court in Zhejiang Province set up the Third Civil Division, specializing the trial of civil cases concerning copyright disputes, trademark disputes and other related types of intellectual property rights disputes. Read the article here...

Scny Eriosscn: Counterfeiters Use Gestalt Psychology

Posted on February 03, 2010
Scny Eriosscn: looks familiar to you? Counterfeiters use Gestalt psychology to let consumers complete a picture they already have of a genuine brand. I am not sure whether some consumers really deceived into seeing Sony Ericsson, but some might at least be confused...

Is Apple's iPad a Knockoff from Shenzhen Great Dragon Brother's P88, Or Is the Latter A Case Of Pre-emtive Cloning?

Posted on February 02, 2010
Stan Abrams of China Hearsay blogs about Shenzhen Great Dragon Brother's P88, which is very similar to Apple's just released iPad. Mr Abrams, never losing his ironical talent wrote about Shenzen Great Dragon Brother's assertive stance towards IP rights in relation to Apple: "[T]he company apparently filed a design patent, so it?s doing its part to create indigenous IP...

Safe Your Logo: Make Dragons More Vital

Posted on February 02, 2010
Message from IP Dragon Duncan Bucknell of Duncan Bucknell Company wrote on his IP Think Tank Blog, see here, about an initiative that invites companies that use a certain animal in their logo to make a contribution that that animal does not become extinct...

Incremental Pharmaceutical Inventions in China and India: "No Need to Reinvent the Wheel"

Posted on January 31, 2010
For those who missed it, in 2008, the Intellectual Property Association of Japan (IPAJ) published an interesting article by Parama Sinha Palit and Bhaskar Bhattacharya called 'Does Intellectual Property Laws in India and China Encourage Innovation'. Messrs Palit and Bhattacharya, both senior associate with Corporate Law Group are advocates of the patentability of incremental, cumulative or adaptive pharmaceutical inventions...

Say My Name Say My Name ...No Domain Name For Individuals In China

Posted on January 31, 2010
January 30th, 2010, Verna Yu wrote an interesting article for the South China Morning Post: 'Upset Net Users Show Their Discontent On Censor's Website'. Ms Yu wrote that the website of the government's internet censor in Hunan was attacked by hackers, that were, allegedly unhappy applicants for website approval...

Goojje.com Infringes Intellectual Property Of Both Google And Baidu

Posted on January 28, 2010
Yu Le and Ralph Jennings have an article for Reuters on the PC Magazine website about a Google clone called Goojje.com, probably using Google's technology without permission, with part of the Baidu logo in its logo. It wants to compete with Google but also wants that Google stays in China...

Knocked Up Because of Knock Off Or How To Protect The Protection

Posted on January 27, 2010
The US condom brand Trojan had problems with Chinese counterfeiters, read 'Born Thanks To Counterfeiters' medio 2008. However, it became clear that also other brands are coping with trademark infringements. Usage of these counterfeits can cause serious health problems (sexual transmittable diseases) and unplanned pregnancy, because of substandard quality...

2010: Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court: "Baidu, Sohu/Sogou Are No Copyright Pirates"

Posted on January 27, 2010
- In June 2005 Shanghai Bu-sheng Music, a branch of EMI in China, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Baidu. Baidu was found liable by People's Court of Haidian District in Beijing for copyright infringement in September 16, 2005. Read more about it in Rouse's China Intellectual Property Express, Issue 265 here...

Almost One Million Patent Applications in China in 2009

Posted on January 27, 2010
China's State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) reports the following statistics:976,686 patent applications (up 17.9%)877,611 domestic (89.9% and up 22.4%)99,075 from abroad (10.1%, down 10.9%) 229,096 invention-patents (up 17.7%)308,861 utility model-patents (up 37...

Multifaceted Spectrum of De Facto Strategies to Enforce IPR in China

Posted on January 27, 2010
Professors Marcus M. Keupp, Angela Beckenbauer and Oliver Gassmann all connected to the Department of Business Administration, Institute of Technology Management of University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, wrote a very interesting article: 'Enforcing Intellectual Property Rights in Weak Appropriability Regimes, The Case of de Facto Protection Strategies in China'...

Chinese MacBook Air knockoffs: Better Than the Real Thing?

Posted on January 27, 2010
Brian X. Chen is running the China Gadget Guide review for Wired about Chinese MacBook Air knockoffs that are on sale in Shenzhen."Chinese knockoffs of the MacBook Air could actually be a compelling option for those desiring the razor-thin form factor of the subnote without paying the premium...

R.I.P. Google.cn? Thanks To Censorship and IP Infringements Or Just Face-saving Exit?

Posted on January 14, 2010
Google.cn is threatening to pull out of China, because of "a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google." Read the official Google blog about it here...

Rogier Creemers' Take on Google in China

Posted on January 14, 2010
IP Dragon's esteemed friend Rogier Creemers is doing a PhD at the University of Maastricht on copyright and media control in China. Below is a guest column of Mr Creemers on Google in China:"By now, most in the blogosphere already know about Google's announcement to possibly leave China, which may have some very interesting consequences and repercussions in the months to come...

Google Ready To Apologize But Implies There's No Reason To Apologize

Posted on January 12, 2010
Gilian Wong wrote an article for Canadian Press called "China writers' group says Google ready to apologize, work out deal on book scanning dispute". Read more here. Hat tip to Jeff Roberts' McGill's CIPP IP 'News This Week'.So Google is ready to apologize to China's writers for scanning the Chinese books (as part of the Google Books project) without asking for permission to the copyright holders, according to China Written Works Copyright Society...

The Implementing Rules of the Third Amended Patent Law Are Coming

Posted on January 11, 2010
At the end of December 2009, the State Council approved the Determination on the Revising of the draft version of the Implementation Rules of the Patent Law. Read more here.

Cybersitting Claims 2.25 Billion US Dollar For Allegedly Pirated Code in Green Dam

Posted on January 07, 2010
It was the Chinese government's plan to demand of computer manufacturers to pre-install this filter programme against pornography and violence, however after a public outcry this was not made mandatory. But it keeps coming back in the news. After Solid Oak, read here, who sent cease and desist letters to Dell and Hewlett Packard, because the filter system Green Dam allegedly had stolen code from them, it is now another US software company's turn: Cybersitting...

Business Prof Navarro: "China's Advantage Comes From 5 Mercantilist Trade Practices"

Posted on January 07, 2010
Business Professor Peter Navarro of the University of California-Irvine, lashed out in 2008 at China Inside Out (ABC), a documentary by Bob Woodruff about China's influence in Angola, Brazil, Cambodia and the US, because it allegedly paints a too nice picture of China...

Five IP Offices: The site...

Posted on January 07, 2010
The five biggest patent offices of the world: USPTO (US), SIPO (China), EPO (EU), JPO (Japan) and KIPO (South Korea) cooperate. They have a website and you can see their common projects, here.Had tip to the IPKat.

IP Dragon ????? in "Sin City" (?????)

Posted on January 06, 2010
Yes, people in Amsterdam can buy sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. And some do. But do they buy counterfeit products? That is the question IP Dragon asked ad random people in the centre of Amsterdam (?????) in the Summer of 2009 (no respresentative survey was done due to time restrictions)...

IPR Infringements Can Make Investments in China Capricious

Posted on January 05, 2010
The Financial Times of January 4th (online), 5th (HK paper version) has an interesting article about famous stock-picker Anthony Bolton who is trying his expertise/luck in China. In the article , written by Sundeep Tucker, Jamil Anderlini and Robert Cookon, they cite Jack Perkowski, managing partner of JFP Holdings about legal peculiaraties that influence investments in China:""China has a legal system but enforcement is missing, particularly on things like intellectual property and contractual issues," according to Jack Perkowski, managing partner of JFP Holdings, who after 20 years on Wall Street has spent the past 15 years in China...

Tort Law Supplementary to IPR Law in Case of IPR Infringements

Posted on January 04, 2010
The Tort Liability Law had a ... well torturous history. In 1997 the decision was made that China needed a Tort Liability Law. In the words of Professor George Conk of Fordham University School of Law "it is a brick by brick effort which does not proceed with the urgency of specific operational laws...

Global Review Counterfeit and Piracy 2008: "Production Infringing Goods Is Still Increasing"

Posted on December 30, 2009
The World Customs Organization (WCO) has launched its annual report for 2008, read the Global Review on Counterfeit and Piracy here.Kunio Mikuriya, secretary general of WCO wrote:"The results reported by Members during 2008 for combating counterfeiting and piracy are the best ever published...

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