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International Law

: IP Dragon

Silk Market Vendors of Counterfeit Goods Terrorise Law Firm

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Remember the Silk Market Appeal Case/Landlord Case about which I blogged at the exact same date, but then in 2006? Read here. Well, a lot has happened in the mean time:

The Beijing Silk Market (before known as Silk Street or Silk Alley) vendors of counterfeit Burberry, Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Prada products, have again overstepped the boundaries of accepted behaviour. After a long history of infringing these luxury brand's trademarks, design-patents and copyrights, the market management organisation entered into an anti-counterfeiting agreement with the coalition of luxury brands, last December (2008). The agreement was that the market manager would close down a stall for two weeks if is caught infringing intellectual property rights of the luxury brands coalition. If the infringing vendor is paying 5000 renminbi to the coalition in the first three days, the ban is reduced to one week.

So far, so good. But now the market management has sued the Chinese law firm IntellecPro which has been acting for the coalition at the Beijing Chaoyang People's Court for lost earnings after being shot down temporarily. They might think the best defense is offence.

Zhao Tianying, legal consultant at IntellecPro, told Managing IP that 40 of the Silk Market stallholders crammed into the law firm's reception and even invaded their rooms to scratch files and documents. And that this continued for days. Read Janice Qu's article for Managing Intellectual Property, which includes a time line of the last four years of legal battles, here.

China Daily says that the lawyer of the Silk Market vendors claims that the report by IntellecPro is lacking the evidence to prove that the vendors were selling fake goods: "The could have been sold by street vendors who just happened to be in front of the traders' stalles". Read the China Daily article here.

The case at the Beijing Chaoyang People's Court was adjourned.

Full post as published by IP Dragon on April 10, 2009 (boomark / email).