International Law

Supreme People's Court Orders Full-compensation Principle in All IPR Cases

Posted on February 26, 2008
"Courts should fully apply logical reasoning and everyday life experiences, and comprehensively and objectively examine the evidence for calculating the amount of compensation," SPC vice-president Cao Jianming told a national work conference on IPR trials in Jinan on February 20, 2008, according to the China Daily...

.ASIA Landrush Ends March 12, 2008

Posted on February 26, 2008
Law firm Foley & Lardner LLP warns firms that the landrush for .ASIA domain names ends March 12, 2008 (Hong Kong time). Read more here..Asia is a sTLD (sponsored top-level domain name). According to ICANN: "[g]enerally speaking, an unsponsored TLD operates under policies established by the global Internet community directly through the ICANN process, while a sponsored TLD is a specialized TLD that has a sponsor representing the narrower community that is most affected by the TLD...

Survey: HK Government Enthousiast About Youth Ambassadors Against Internet Piracy

Posted on February 25, 2008
SurveyTwo years ago the HK Government started recruiting youths to fight online piracy. Now it has hailed them and said that their efforts have been very effective, read here.Now IP Dragon starts with a survey and is very interested in your opinion.Should the HK Government use youths to combat IP infringements?Yes, getting young people involved is effective and cost efficient;No, it is only the HK Government's responsibility and task;I don't know...

What Does The New Chinese Patent Law Have In Store?

Posted on February 22, 2008
Mr Charles C. Liu, Partner and Director of US Practice, Unitalen Attorneys at Law and Ms Jeanne J. Liu wrote a series of four installments (originally published in China Intellectual Property, 20:44-51, 2007) about the amendment of the Chinese patent law that will probably be ready in 2008...

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Counterfeit iPhones Smuggled Outside China; Genuine iPhone Smuggled Back Into China

Posted on February 20, 2008
Stop the press! Although also iClones (fake iPhones) exit China to Europe and the US, read here, also genuine iPods are manufactured in China for/by Apple and exported abroad. There is a lack of the real thing in China, so the price people want to pay for it rises...

Catherine Sun Debunks Misconceptions About Chinese IP Protection

Posted on February 14, 2008
Foley & Lardner LLM Partner Ms Catherine Sun discusses the three biggest misconceptions about Chinese IP protection:The belief that IP is not enforceable in China; keeping brands and technology within the U.S. will keep them safe; and counterfeiting products are of poor quality...

Possibly 50,000 Counterfeit Train Tickets (Guangzhou-Hengyang) Sold During Spring Festival

Posted on February 14, 2008
The People's Daily Online runs with the story of Xinhua that three people were arrested after they allegedly sold 50,000 counterfeit train tickets during Spring Festival.Read more here.

Origin Fake Malaria Medicine Traced By Scientific Effort

Posted on February 14, 2008
Every year about 500 million people become ill of malaria. Every year 1 million people die, because of one version of malaria called Plasmodium falciparum. One major problem is that not all malaria medicines are genuine and some have only a low dose of the active ingredient, so that the malaria parasite becomes resistent...

Kung si fa chai! ????

Posted on February 08, 2008
Happy Chinese new year to you!????My new year's resolution for the year 4706 is to increase the frequency and relevancy of my postings.Cheers,IP Dragon

Does China's Copyright Law Has A Sense Of Humour?

Posted on January 29, 2008
Tavis Coburn created in 2007 "Mao Jordon", using Mao holding a Nike Air in his hand and wearing a hair band with swoosh, a registered trademark of Nike. The artist provokes a lot of questions with a limited edition of 100 prints.Besides whether Mr Coburn's work would be censored in China, would it be protected under China's author's right?Article 1 Copyright Law: This Law is enacted, in accordance with the Constitution, for the purposes of protecting the copyright of authors in their literary, artistic and scientific works and the copyright-related rights and interests, of encouraging the creation and dissemination of works which would contribute to the construction of socialist spiritual and material civilization, and of promoting the development and prosperity of the socialist culture and science...

Zhongyi Electronics to Microsoft: "See you in Court"

Posted on January 23, 2008
According to MarketWatch (head tip to China Economic Review) Microsoft is sued by Zhongyi Electronics for alleged copyright infringement for its Chinese character input method editor that Microsoft applies in Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP operating systems...

Africa Preferred Route Chinese Counterfeits To Europe

Posted on January 23, 2008
Thailand is the preferred route into Asia for counterfeit and pirated goods originating from China, read here. Now IP Dragon learned from Jeremy Phillips, known from the renowned IP Kat, but also contributor to the new blog Afro-IP who is quoting Christophe Zimmermanna, head of the Brussels-based World Customs Organisation's counterfeiting and piracy unit, that the African continent is the favourite transit route to Europe for goods infringing IP coming from China...

Patent Challenge in China: What's the State of the Art?

Posted on January 16, 2008
The last quarterly newsletter of the European Patent Office (EPO) has an interesting article about the difficulty for foreign patent applicants to determine prior art (state of the art) in China, because all prior art in China is in Chinese. To determine prior art is crucial, because the patent can only be granted to an invention that is both new and inventive...

Service Of Process in China... eeh People's Republic of China

Posted on January 10, 2008
In case you want to sue an IP infringer that has residence in China from your own country, you can make use of the Convention on Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil and Commercial Matters, The Hague, November 15, 1965. Although China is a convention member state, it deals in a very strict way with service requests from abroad...

Message from IP Dragon

Posted on January 02, 2008
Happy new year!Today, I started working for Howrey LLP, an international law firm that is specialised in intellectual property, litigation and antitrust.Cheers,IP Dragon

IPR Officials Say The Darndest Things: Progress in Collecting Karaoke Copyright Royalties

Posted on January 01, 2008
Yan Liang of Xinhua News reports that "nearly half of the Chinese provinces have taken initiatives to collect karaoke copyright royalties by the end of 2007 in an effort to protect intellectual property rights (IPR) in audio and video sectors." "An official with the country's IPR protection group echoed Liu, saying that the move marked new progress in property protection...

Internet Copyright Law 2006 Difference Between Winning (Baidu) And Losing (Yahoo China)?

Posted on January 01, 2008
Although both Baidu.com and Yahoo China basically provided deep links to pirated mp3's, Baidu won in court, while Yahoo China lost. What are the differences?7 (minus EMI) IFPI members versus Baidu.com Wang Hongjiang of Xinhua reports about a group of record companies who lost again a lawsuit against Baidu...

Data Key On Road To IPR Transparency

Posted on December 19, 2007
The MailTribune runs an LA Times article called 'Writing their own tickets, Knockoffs still a thriving business in China' by Mr Don Lee. The article draws a picture of Wengang, a city in Jiangxin province famous for its pens/infamous for its counterfeit pens...

Cheng Yongshun's Critique On US Patent Reform Act Ammuniton To Opposites

Posted on December 14, 2007
Philip Brooks' Patent Infringement Update has a great post called 'China Weighs in on Patent Reform Bill', read here.It is great when intellectual property scholars of different countries can learn from each other. For a long time a stream of advice on and ideas about IP flowed mainly from Europe and the US in the direction of China...

Beijing, Guangzhou, Jiangsu and Zhejiang IP Litigation Data

Posted on December 14, 2007
Mr Will Lewis, an international business law and IP rights student at University of San Diego School of Law, tells on his blog Experience not logic that he was given a slew of data on IP litigation between domestic parties and between a domestic party and a foreign party in Beijing, Guangzhou, Jiangsu and Zhejiang courts...

IP Dragon Starts Reviewing Books About IP in China

Posted on December 13, 2007
IP Dragon was happy to receive three very interesting book titles by post published by Kluwer Law International to review.In the next few months expect the following reviews on IP Dragon:"A Primer on Foreign Investment Enterprises and Protection of Intellectual Property in China" by Daniel C...

What Global Players Could Learn From Wii versus Vii

Posted on December 02, 2007
Last year, on September 14, 2006, Nintendo announced the release information (launch of the product at different dates in different locations) about the Wii, a device with new form of player interaction. Read about Wii's conception, creation, launch, reception etc, here...

China Bad News For Thailand's Counterfeit Manufacturers

Posted on November 27, 2007
Jeffrey Sheban wrote another insightful article about the counterfeiting industry, entitled 'Thailand's counterfeit pipeline' for the Columbus Dispatch. Don't worry, IP Dragon has not lost its focus on IP in China. Mr Sheban observed that Thailand is the hub for Chinese counterfeit products...

Taiwan's Exciting 2007: IP Case Proceeding, IP Court and Patent Attorney Acts

Posted on November 27, 2007
Tsai Lee & Chen describes 2007 as "exciting for IP professionals in Taiwan". In the course of merely six months, the Legislative Yuan (Taiwan?s Congress) has passed three important laws and regulations related to the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights...

Preferring Price Discrimination Over Sidestepping Patents?

Posted on November 27, 2007
Andrew Jack of the Financial Times wrote an article about discussions between 500 representatives of government, industry and NGO's about patents at the World Health Organisation.The article, which is named 'Pressure over patents forces pharma on to the back foot' mentions a possible and intriguing solution to tackle the tension between accessibility of medicines in poor countries and return on investment by using patents...

Mr Schwabach's Essay Debunks Perception IP Piracy in China, But Remains Silent About IP Infringements In/From China

Posted on November 27, 2007
Aaron Schwabach wrote an well written and interesting essay called ?Intellectual Property Piracy: Perception and Reality in China, the United States, and Elsewhere?. Find the pdf here.Mr Schwabach starts with the quote: ?There is probably more misinformation about China than about any other country in the world?...

Daniel Chow: Link Between Counterfeiting and Organised Crime

Posted on November 27, 2007
Jeffrey Sheban wrote a good article entitled 'In the land of counterfeit' for The Columbus Dispatch in which the link between counterfeiting and organised crime is suggested. He quotes Ohio State University law professor Mr Daniel C.K. Chow, who spent two years in China leading anti-counterfeiting efforts for the consumer products giant Procter & Gamble...

What Has Labour Contract Law in China to do with IP?

Posted on November 15, 2007
According to article 39 TRIPs undisclosed information, including trade secrets, shall be protected by the WTO members, including China. Now Steven Dickenson of the prolific China Law Blog wrote an article for China International Business about China's new labour contract law, which will go into effect on January 1, 2008...

Gregory Lions About Fakes: Fashion Brands Have Asked For It

Posted on November 15, 2007
Mr Gregory Lions, a former financial analyst for Dun & Bradstreet Inc., and currently the CEO of Buyherebuynow.com is ranting that fashion brands by asking "outrageous prices" have brought the trademark infringements problem upon themselves."By pricing their wares in the stratosphere, designers are essentially causing the knock-off market to thrive...

From the Trenches of IP Education in China

Posted on November 12, 2007
It is great when practitioners of IP law in China share their knowledge with the next generation. Mr Stan Abrams, working at DLA Piper in Beijing made time for teachting at Central University of Finance and Economics (a co-operation programme between Cai Da, the University of Maryland and the University of Maastricht)...

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