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IP Dragon 
Gathering, commenting and sharing information about Intellectual Property in China.
Post Frequency: 2.9/day Last Entry: February 09, 2010 at 01:59:00 Recent Entries: 300
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China Higher and Higher in PCT Applications' Heaven
Posted on February 09, 2010The 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, 2010Jia 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, 2010Alan 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, 2010Haining 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, 2010Scny 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, 2010Stan 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, 2010Message 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, 2010For 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, 2010January 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, 2010Yu 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, 2010The 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, 2010China'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, 2010Professors 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, 2010Brian 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, 2010Google.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, 2010IP 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, 2010Gilian 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, 2010At 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, 2010It 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, 2010Business 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, 2010The 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, 2010Yes, 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, 2010The 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, 2010The 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, 2009The 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...
Hu Jintao's Serious Words About Innovation and IPR in China: "Treasure As Your Life"
Posted on December 28, 2009Innovation is for each country crucial to compete. Now China's Harmony Express, the world's fastest long-distance passenger train service between Guangzhou (??) and Wuhan (??) has just been launched and is with 350 kilometers per hour 50 kilometers per hour faster than Japan's Shinkansen bullet train and France's TGVs...
No, I Don't Believe the Starbucks' counsel Who Said: "Chinese Customers Refill Cup With Coffee From Other Brands"
Posted on December 24, 2009Mark Aoki-Fordham, director and corporate counsel at Starbucks Coffee Company said something ... well outlandish: ?We are still trying to educate Chinese customers about why our coffee is a good beverage to drink at all times of day -- and we?ve found that they are not the most loyal,? Aoki-Fordham noted...
Microsofts' MSN Juku Infringes Plurk and Apologises
Posted on December 22, 2009MSN Juku, Microsoft's micro-blogging site in China, admitted that that it has infringed the copyright of Plurk, which is popular in Taiwan and the Philipines but is blocked in the PRC. Read relevant articles at the Plurk's blog:- Microsoft China rips off Asia's No...
Shanda Literature Ltd Sues Baidu For Alleged Copyright Infringement
Posted on December 22, 2009Xie Yu reports for China Daily about Shanda Literature Limited's lawsuit against Baidu for alledged copyright piracy. Read more here.
Appellate Body Report in Sino-American Dispute about Market Access for Copyrighted Products
Posted on December 22, 2009Yesterday, it was announced that the Report of the Appellate Body in China ? Measures Affecting Trading Rights and Distribution Services for Certain Publications and Audiovisual Entertainment Products, WT/DS363/AB/R was published. The three Members of the Appellate Body who served on this appeal were: Ms...
Giorgio Armani Not Amused By Giormani of Hong Kong
Posted on December 17, 2009IP Dragon was strolling in Sha Tin (??), minding his own business, until he came across a Giormani shop. Was Giorgio Armani saving costs by using less lettering on the billboards?Italian designer Giorgio Armani, who built the vast Emporio Armani (empire Armani) of clothing and luxury products, will probably not be amused that Kelvin Ng and Jane Tong founded Giormani, a Hong Kong sofa furniture design and manufacturing company in 1999...
Shanghai's "Bad Girl" Writer Mian Mian (??) Sues Google
Posted on December 16, 2009The writer of the banned book Candy, and, Panda Sex (according to China Daily more mature) and Acid Love, sues Google.Shanghai's "Best Bad Girl" Author Mian Mian (??), finds support from the China Written Works Copyright Society. Chen Jia en Xie Yu of China Daily report: "Mian said Google scanned her entire novel, titled Acid Lover, published by the Shanghai Joint Publishing Company, without notifying her or paying her for copyright permission...
China's Protectionism Promotes Chinese Patents
Posted on December 15, 2009IP Dragon's friend Peter Ollier of Managing Intellectual Property reports about the 'Instructions for National Indigenous Innovation Product Application Procedures', promulgated by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Center for Science and Technology in September 2009...
Prof Potter about China's Health Care Reform: "Do Not Forget Cost of Patent Protection"
Posted on December 15, 2009December 10 and 11, 2009, IP Dragon attended interesting seminar called 'The Development of the Chinese Legal System: Change & Challenges' organised by the Centre for Chinese Law of the University of Hong Kong.Law Professor Pitman Potter of the University of British Columbia was talking about his upcoming paper "China's Health Care Policy"...
Media Control Not Copyright Piracy Main Reason For China's Battle Against BitTorrent
Posted on December 09, 2009Frederik Borgesius (research master at IViR, studying copyright law and internet law for a semester at the University of Hong Kong, paralegal at solv.nl, a Dutch IP & IT boutique law firm, and "dj Fred" by night at Yumla for example) sent IP Dragon an interesting link...
Starbucks Is Coming From Venus, Copycats from St. Mars
Posted on December 03, 2009Jamon Yerger is founder of Southern Perspective Shenzhen ("China Law Reference, doing it right the first time"), a consulting company in the bustling city of Shenzhen that provides advice on a range of business functions; the majority of which deal with manufacturing in China and legal protection for foreign companies engaged in supply chain activities...
How Much Does A Copyright Holder Get When His Content is Broadcast in China?
Posted on November 30, 2009IP Dragon's friend Rogier Creemer, of Maastricht University, who is doing field research for his his PhD thesis about copyright, piracy and media control, points us to the provisional radio and tv broadcasting recording remuneration payment rules that will be effective January 1, 2010...
FEVS: "Mainland China Principal Counterfeiter Wine"
Posted on November 24, 2009Dominique Schroeder has a good article about counterfeit wine for Agence France-Presse published in the South China Morning Post today."The mainland is "the principal counterfeiter", according to Renaud Gaillard, deputy director of the French export trade body, Federation des Exportateurs de Vins et Spriritueux de France (FEVS)...
Push Up the Plagiarism: It's a Photo, No ... It's a Painting
Posted on November 11, 2009Joel Martinsen of the great site about Chinese media, advertising, urban life and many more fascinating subjects, Danwei.org, has a great blog about 'Painted plagiarism of push-up photograph' read here.
R&D in China: No Genuine Research, Only Development Thanks to Poor Execution IPR Laws
Posted on November 09, 2009New Europe reports about EU firms' enthusiasm about China's market prospects and their concern about the execution of the IPR laws in China." ?China?s intellectual property laws are not bad. The problem is their implementation,? [EU?s Chamber of Commerce in China (EUCCC) President Joerg] Wuttke said...
Promotion and Protection of China's Culture: Hard Copyright For Soft Power
Posted on November 09, 2009In The Economist special report on China and the US called 'Overkill' where the author James Miles postulates the opinion that China is piling up more weapons than it appears to need, Mr Miles also writes about the need for China to develop its soft power:"Soft power was mentioned for the first time by a Chinese leader in public in 2007...
US-China Green Technology Transfer Strained By Circular Reasoning
Posted on November 09, 2009Last month (October 22nd 2009) The Economist had a special report about the relationship between China and the US. In the article 'The price of cleanliness' the circular reasoning is pointed out that makes solving the environmental challenge in China very difficult:"Technology transfer will also be a thorny issue...
iSuppli: China's Grey Mobile Phone Market Explodes
Posted on November 06, 2009In China there is a vast amount of grey cell phones, which are phones manufactured in China that are not recognised or licensed by government regulators. Grey market shipments are set to be 145 million units. Read market research firm iSuppli's article about it here...
Sino-Korean Dispute About Dragon Boat Festival
Posted on November 05, 2009A bit late, but too interesting to let it pass unnoticed, here is the article by Dr. Zhang Quanyi about South Korea and China who both applied at the UNESCO to put the same dragon boat festival on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritages; Dano versus Duanwu, see here...
First Issue The WIPO Journal Includes Articles About IPR in China
Posted on November 02, 2009The first issue of the brand new 'WIPO Journal: Analysis and Debate about Intellectual Property Issues' has just been published. I have not read the issue yet, but I am sure Professor Peter K. Yu, the general editor of the magazine includes China in his article...
Professor David Llewlyn Explained All IPRs in One Hour
Posted on October 28, 2009IP Dragon was attending yesterday evening the very inspiring lecture of Professor David Llewelyn at the University of Hong Kong, about the importance of intellectual property rights for not only experts, but everybody.Professor Llewelyn made clear that the lecture was a public lecture meant for non-experts; the normal consumers; and put experts and expertise in perspective...
"Games on iPhone Are 50-90 Percent Pirated"
Posted on October 27, 2009Simon Carless of Gamasutra wrote that Vice-President Alan Yu of game developer ngmoco:) said at the GDC in Shanghai that "iPhone game piracy is a big issue, with 50%-90% piracy estimated in the first week of release on Ngmoco games." 50 to 90 percent of the potential income wiped out, thrashed, removed from the balance sheet...
Professor Llewelyn Asks Rhetorical Question About IPRs: "Too Important to Leave to the Lawyers?"
Posted on October 26, 2009Tonight, IP Dragon is looking forward to attend the lecture of Professor David Llewelyn about the relevancy of Intellectual Property Rights for everybody."As Premier Wen Jiabao has been saying since 2004, world competition in the 21st century will revolve around competition for intellectual property rights (IPRs)...
Chinese Counterfeit ICs Sold To US Navy. How To Identify Them?
Posted on October 26, 2009With the Somalian pirates hijacking ships (a Chinese container carrier fell into their hands), key words such as "piracy" and "pirates" seem to be reclaimed by the old fashioned thugs. Read here. However, the newer version of the pirates: trademark counterfeiters and copyright pirates can have just as deadly an effect...
ASEAN-China: IPR Cooperation and Standard MOUs
Posted on October 23, 2009The Association of East Asian Nations (ASEAN) which includes Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalem, Cambodia, Myanmar, Lao PDR and Viet Nam will meet in Hua Hin, Thailand, from October 23 to 25.The ASEAN, ASEAN + 1 (ASEAN plus China), ASEAN + 3 (ASEAN plus China, South Korea and Japan) and East Asian Summit (ASEAN plus India, Australia and New Zealand) are held in Hua Hin, Thailand from Oct...
Russia to China: Kalashnikov's Copyright Should Be Protected
Posted on October 23, 2009Topix reports that Russia and China are trying to reach an agreement on copyright protection of the Kalashnikov, the world famous assault rifle. Read here. More about the most famous Kalashnikov the AK-47 here.
Massive Chinese Copyright Trade at Frankfurt Book Fair
Posted on October 23, 2009"Die Chinesen sind da," ("The Chinese are there", in German) was the motto of the biggest book fair in the world: the Frankfurter Buchmesse (October 6-10, 2009). China was Guest of Honour and the Chinese book publishers did show themselves prominently: "Chinese publishers have exported 1,310 copyright items, and imported 882 titles to foreign counterparts...
IPR/Espionage Ping-Pong Case: Fiat Sues Great Wall, Great Wall Sues Fiat
Posted on October 22, 2009Fiat sued Great Wall, because it alleges that the Great Wall Peri infringes the intellectal property rights of the FIAT Panda. After this Great Wall sued FIAT at the Shijiazhuang People's Court, based on "evidence" provided by FIAT to the court that they made photo's of production facilities...
USCC 2008 Report to Congress: From Visible IPR Infringements To Undectable Cyber Espionage
Posted on October 22, 2009The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission came up with their 2008 Report to Congress. The conclusion includes:"China continues to violate its WTO commitments to avoid trade distorting measures. Among the trade-related situations in China that are counter to those commitments are restricted market access for foreign financial news services, books, films and other media; weak intellectual property protection; sustained use of domestic and export subsidies; lack of transparency in regulatory processes; continued emphasis on implementing policies that protect and promote domestic industries to the disadvantage of foreign competition; import barriers and export preferences; and limitations on foreign investment or ownership in certain sectors of the economy...
China Written Works Copyright Society Objects Google Settlement
Posted on October 21, 2009The China Written Works Copyright Society, representing 570 Chinese authors, objects to be included in the Google Class Action Settlement, between Google and US authors and publishers. They claim that the copyright of the Chinese authors is infringed...
20th Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade Between China and US
Posted on October 21, 2009China and the US will hold their 20th Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) in Hangzhou (Zhejiang province) on October 29th 2009. The first JCCT was established in 1983 as a forum for the two countries to discuss trade and intellectual property matters...
Economic Espionage Case Against Suspects Allegedly Sponsored By China
Posted on October 20, 2009The time that the Russians were the only bad guys in James Bond movies or John le Carré books is over. Jaikumar Vijayan has written an interesting article for Computerworld called 'Trial set to begin in economic espionage case involving China'. The suspects that allegedly stole secrets from Netlogic Microsystems are prosecuted under the Economic Espionage Act...
IPR Challenges in Geely-Ford Talks About Volvo
Posted on October 20, 2009Keith Naughton and Cathy Chan wrote about the effort of Geely to buy Volvo of Ford jeopardized because of intellectual property rights related challenges, read the Reuters article here.The struggle about IPRs comes in the wake of "the FBI?s Oct. 14 arrest of former Ford engineer Xiang Dong Yu, 47, who was charged with stealing trade secrets from Ford in an effort to get a job with a Chinese car company...
Professor Peter K. Yu General Editor of WIPO Journal: Analysis and Debate of Intellectual Property Issues
Posted on October 20, 2009There is a new peer reviewed IPR journal: WIPO Journal, a platform for the global IP debate. The prolific Professor Peter K. Yu, will be its general editor and specialist for China and the United States. I am looking forward to it very much. Read more about it here.
Gartner Predicts 2012 Software Piracy in China Will Fall To 50 Percent
Posted on October 19, 2009Kelvin Soh and Melanie Lee report that "Gartner estimated that software piracy rates in mainland China would fall as low as 50 percent by 2012, putting it almost on a par with rates in developed Asian markets like Hong Kong. See there Reuters article, via the MSNBC site here...
Revolutionary Lessons For China From Michael Carrier's Book 'Innovation for the 21st Century'
Posted on October 17, 2009'Innovation for the 21st Century, Harnessing the Power of Intellectual Property and Antitrust Law' by Michael A. Carrier. Oxford University Press. Professor Michael Carrier of Rutgers University School of Law, wrote an excellent book about intellectual property rights (IPR) law and antitrust law, the intersection between the two disciplines and how both systems can be improved...
China Appeals WTO DS 363 About Market Access of Copyrighted Goods
Posted on September 22, 2009China is appealing the panel decision DS 363 (Measures affecting trading rights and distribution services for certain publications and audiovisual entertainment products) by the Dispute Settlement Body, in which many of the US allegations were uphold...
EU Afraid To Share Sensitive Proprietary Info With China
Posted on September 21, 2009The executive summary of the 2009 Position Paper of the European Union Chamber of Commerce about China shows the concerns the EU has about China's alleged industrial-intervention policies and foreign investment restrictions."The results of the European Chamber Business Confidence Survey 2009, [...
IPR Protection For Traditional Chinese Medicine Needed
Posted on September 17, 2009On April 1st, IP Dragon wrote about how to protect Traditional Chinese Medicine, see here. And it was certainly not an April Fool's Day joke. But a lot in this fields need to be done. Exactly that is pointed out by the State Council (the highest legislative body) which came up (April 21st, 2009) with "Some Opinions of the State Council on Supporting and Promoting the Development of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Industry, No...
Marco Polo Hiuui: Knock-off Of Knock-off = Knock-off Square
Posted on September 16, 2009Recently IP Dragon reported about Polo Santa Roberta, an "original" knock-off of Ralph Lauren's Polo brand and Burberry tartan pattern. However, when IP Dragon was taking a stroll down his Mong Kok neighbourhood, he learned that the knockoff is not so "original" after all...
"Class" Justice in Trademark Rights: Lan Kwai Fong
Posted on September 15, 2009Lan Kwai Fong, an L-shaped expat-trap of bars and restaurants in Central, Hong Kong Island, founded by Allan Zeman (see its history here), is that well known in China and Macau many registered the name in all kinds of classes. Neil Gough and Denise Tsang of the South China Morning Post wrote (September 14th) that Allan Zeman, Hong Kong entrepreneur is starting another aggregation of bars and restaurants in Chengdu, Sichuan province...
Exxon Mobil Wins 500,000 RMB Because of Trademark Infringement
Posted on September 03, 2009Parties: Plaintiff Exxon Mobil; defendants: American Mobil International Petroleum Group and Xi'an Yanqing Technology Development Co. Dispute: "defendants registered web addresses that included the Chinese characters for 'Mobil'." Probably with this is meant the characters ?? (mei3 = good, beautiful; fu2 = confidence, trust) and not the Chinese characters that translate mobil, because this word in the English language does not have any meaning...
HK Government Wants Your Views on Copyright Tribunal Rules
Posted on September 02, 2009click picture to enlarge Which direction should the Copyright Tribunal Rules go?Since 1999 Hong Kong uses a Copyright Tribunal, which is an independent and quasi-judicial body established under the Copyright Ordinance to hear and resolve disputes about:- Licensing schemes;- Licensing by licensing bodies;- Determining the award for employees for using his/her work outside reasonable contemplation; - Obtaining Tribunal's consent on behalf of owners of right of reproduction of a performance or on behalf of the owner of the performers' rental rights; - Applications for determination of equitable remuneration to persons entitled to restrain rental by virtue of commencement of section 10 of the Intellectual Property (World Trade Organisation Amendments) Ordinance 1996;- Applications for determination of compensation arising from contrary rights as a result of the commencement of the Copyright Ordinance...
Harvest of Counterfeit Louis Vuitton and Gucci in 15 Minutes at Mong Kok Station
Posted on September 01, 2009I was standing less than 15 minutes at the MTR station of Mong Kok, the most bustling and dense populated part of Kowloon, the peninsula of Hong Kong. I saw 5 ladies with a bag that could be counterfeit. Some were a bit shocked that I did not want to make a picture of them, but of their bags...
Creemers' Summary Of And Comments On DS363
Posted on August 26, 2009Rogier Creemers of the University of Maastricht summarised 491 pages of the panel report on DS363: China - Measures Affecting Trading Rights and Distribution Services for Certain Publications and Audiovisual Entertainment Product, and gave some comments, see here.
IP Dragon Will Blog About Two Conferences in Hong Kong About IPR in China, Hong Kong and Europe
Posted on August 26, 20094 and 5 September the IP & IT: Theory and Practice conference is organised by:Law and Technology Centre Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong (HKU)Dept of Computer Science, HKUSchool of Law, King's College LondonFaculty of Law, University of ZurichFriday, 4 SeptemberPanel I: Trademark Protection: Struggling Ahead...
Polo Santa Roberta "Original" Mix of Ralph Lauren's Polo Brand And Burberry Tartan Pattern
Posted on August 26, 2009Spotted today in Nathan Road, Mong Kok, Hong Kong: a shop with bags that carry the brand Polo Santa Roberta. Sounds very similar to the brand of Ralph Lauren; Polo and it looks very similar to the tartan pattern of Burberry.
60 percent of Hong Kong Young Download Films or Music Illegally
Posted on August 22, 2009Adrian Wan, of the South China Morning of Friday, August 21st, reported that 60 percent of young people in Hong Kong download films or music illegally, according to Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups (HKFYG) survey.17 perent of 559 respondents aged 10 to 24 were unsure whether they were breaking copyright law...
If You Have .hk HKIRC Will Give You .?? For Free
Posted on August 13, 2009James Nurton of Managing IP reports about an announcement from the Hong Kong Internet Registration Corportation (HKIRC). If ICANN will introduce new non-Roman country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) names, including Chinese characters, HKIRC will give everyone with a ...
WTO Report of the Panel DS363
Posted on August 13, 2009Intellectual property enforcement and market access are interrelated. About the first part we have seen the report DS362, and August 12th 2009, WTO's panel issued a report about the latter: DS363: China - Measures Affecting Trading Rights and Distribution Services for Certain Publications and Audiovisual Entertainment Product...
New Red Dawn in Patents: More Chinese than Foreign Companies Filed Chinese Invention Patents
Posted on July 31, 2009Joff Wild of IAM Magazine has another great blog: 'Major breakthrough for Chinese companies in the patenting stakes' , read here. Mr Wild observes that according to SIPO's statistics the first half of 2009 show that Chinese domestic companies filed more invention patents than foreign companies...
Cherkizovsky Market Closed Because of Counterfeit and Pirated Goods From China
Posted on July 31, 2009Cherkizovsky Market, Russia's biggest market was closed down after discovery of more than 6,000 containers of counterfeit and pirated goods from China worth US$ 2 billion. The market was described by Russia Today (RT) as a "country within a country"...
News From The Front Lines
Posted on July 28, 2009Guest article and picture by Miko?aj RogowskiWriting that the all-front global IPR war between the owners and the infringers is well underway might sound a bit of a truism so I will simply skip to the notable news from the trenches. Chinese government owned China Daily and Taiwanese China Post both have some worth reading articles regarding details of the Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Courts recent decision...
Good Old Days of Counterfeiting in Hong Kong?
Posted on July 21, 2009Adrian Burden of No to Fakes interviewed Sarah McCartney, the writer of the book Fake Factor. Sarah McCartney: "A couple of decades ago people could only buy fakes if they went abroad for them. Part of the fun of visiting Hong Kong was coming back with a fake luxury watch that you'd got by going to a secret backstreet shop with a man who whispered at you in the street as you explored the market stalls...
Effect of DS362 on Copyright Piracy in China Nil?
Posted on July 20, 2009Rogier Creemers of the University of Maastricht, Faculty of Law, has written an interesting article that will be published in the forthcoming number of European Intellectual Property Review:'The Effects of WTO Case DS362 on Audiovisual Media Piracy in China'...
Obama Endorses Fake Blackberry? Yea, right...
Posted on July 16, 2009Jason Dean and Ellen Zhu of China Journal of the WSJ, have a nice post about a rip-off version of Blackberry called Blockberry which pretends in an advertisement to be endorsed by the president of the USA. Read here. I ask myself why did they not call the apparatus Obamaberry in the first place?Thank you Sir CH of Mobimania (new site will be up soon)
Recession + E-commerce = Counterfeiting
Posted on July 14, 2009Robert Klara wrote a very nice article: 'The Fight Against Fakes' for Brandweek.His article is about:the economic crisis and advent of e-commerce that prove to be a fatal mix for brands; trademarks are increasingly being infringed upon; if global dimension of this fatal mix is well described by Mr Klara: "The same Wild West quality of the Internet that makes it so enticing to shoppers is also why it's most terrifying for upscale brands, most of which have little hope of foiling the sale of a fake handbag made in China and bought by a customer in South Carolina from a Web site based in Estonia...
Article 6ter Paris Convention Online: Hong Kong (2), China (0), Netherlands (37)
Posted on July 13, 2009March 31, 2009, WIPO's first electronic publication of signs, emblems etc. protected under article 6ter Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, see here. On this day (July 13, 2009), if you type in China, you see only the emblem and flag of Hong Kong S...
EU Customs Report 2008 About IPR Enforcement Activities not IPR Infringements from China
Posted on July 10, 2009Yesterday the European Commission Directorate-General Taxation and Customs Union (DG TAXUD) published the 'Report on EU Customs Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights. Results at the European Border 2008'. On page 9 we find a crucial alinea, which disclaims the scope the report:"Although the overall amount of IPR infringing goods entering or leaving the EU cannot beascertained from these figures, or whether the problem is growing, the figures do show that IPRenforcement continues to be a priority for customs authorities in the EU...
Fake iPhones: Rip-off or Innovation
Posted on July 07, 2009iPhone in relation to China is in the news again. Stan Abrams of China Hearsay wrote about the alleged looming problems with Apple's iPhone trademark in China, see here. And then I was interviewed by Sophie Pilgrim of France 24, the French BBC so to say, about a video by MacMedics and about iPhones, counterfeiting and what you can do about it...
My You Live In Interesting Times Online: Does China's Green Dam Includes Pirated Code?
Posted on June 17, 2009May you live in interesting times on the Chinese internet: pre-installed filtering technology which is used to censor, a passionate opinion against it supported by a massive internet survey, and last but not least the very filtering software might be qualified as copyright infringement...
Supreme People's Court of China: "Current Economic Situation Makes Granting IPR Injunctions More Difficult"
Posted on June 09, 2009December 2008, I dealt with the 'Influence of the Financial Crisis on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property in China'. In this post I wrote:In China there are still villages dependent on the production of counterfeit and pirated goods. The incentive for the Chinese government to enforce intellectual property and make these people de facto unemployed and thus prone to protest is not very likely...
Sino-Japanese IPR Memorandum of Understanding: What Does It All Mean?
Posted on June 09, 2009Although the text of the IPR MOU between China and Japan is not available, Adam Smith of the World Trademark Review tried to make sense of it all and prognose what the results will be of the negotiations/cooperations and asked yours truly in the process...
Copyright Administrative Punishment Implementation Rules (2009)
Posted on June 08, 2009The Administrative Punishment Rules for Copyright Infringement were recently updated and will take effect June 15, 2009. Rogier Creemers, Ph.D. Researcher at Maastricht University (the Netherlands) who already obtained a Master's degree in Sinology from the University of Leuven (Belgium), sent me an email with these rules translated by him into English...
Working Group Must Protect Against Flood of Chinese IPR Infringements of Japanese Products
Posted on June 04, 2009Mainichi Daily News reports that Japan and the People's Republic of China have set up a working group to address intellectual property challenges. This Sunday the working group (which consists of the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Ministry and Chinese Ministry of Commerce and other institutions) will probably meet for the first time...
LOIYIR Must Stop Using L'Oréal's Chinese Name and Claiming It's Part of L'Oréal
Posted on June 03, 2009Already in 2007 there was some confusion among consumers, see the question at Ask Koubei here:Question: "LOIYIR ? L'Oréal ?????" translation: LOIYIR is L'Oréal's product?Answer: "??." Translation: noThe confusion was created by Hangzhou LOIYIR Cosmetics and Shanghai Meilianni Cosmetics that used the Chinese name of L'Oréal ??? and claimed that LOIYIR's products are from L'Oréal...
IP Dragon's Law Firms Update
Posted on May 25, 2009IP Dragon checked the IP law firms specialised in IPR in China. Here are some of the firms with new articles:Baker & McKenzie- 'People's Republic of China Patent Law Implementing Regulations Draft' (pdf)http://www.bakernet.com/BakerNet/Resources/Publications/Recent+Publications/ChinaPRCPatentLawImplementingRegulationsDraftCAApr09...
Harlan Ellison Says The Darndest Things About Digital Piracy Of His Work
Posted on May 23, 2009May 16-17, 2009, the International Herald Tribune had the following quote from the sci-fi author and screenwriter Harlan Ellison: "If you put your hand in my pocket, you'll drag back six inches of bloody stump."
Grim audits of EU-China Relations ? IPR to the rescue?
Posted on May 18, 2009Guest article by Miko?aj RogowskiDragons Nightmare, an article from the last month?s edition of The Economist drew a rather pessimistic picture of the European Union ? China relations landscape. According to The Economist the EU is a tough spot. The Economist argues that currently the conflicting policies of the member states are far from rising to the task of coping with the challenges of the emerging of China...
Reality Imitates Fiction: China National Space Administration Logo: Half Star Trek, And Other Half ...Star Trek
Posted on May 18, 2009Professor Susan Scafidi, the authoriy on Fashion Law (Fashion and Intellectual Property Law), author of 'Who Owns Culture?' and Counterfeit Chic sent me a great link: 'China Bootlegs Star Trek for Its Space Program' on Cool Aggregator, a site about pop-culture and strange news maintained by Valerie D'Orazio...
Business Leaders' Advice On Succeeding in China: IPR, IPR and IPR
Posted on May 14, 2009The Knowledge@W.P. Carey newsletter of the W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, has a great series of articles: 'Trade, China and the World Economic Order'. Part 3 is called: Business Leaders' Advice on Succeeding in China.' Herein, sensible things are said about intellectual property rights in China:"Hit-and-miss IP regulation is a significant inhibitor to development in China," said W...
Two Encouraging Surveys: On Public Awareness and Business Attitudes of Intellectual Property Rights in Hong Kong
Posted on May 13, 2009Selene Ng of Wilkinson and Grist wrote an article on the site of IAM Magazine about an encouraging outcome of a survey on public awareness of intellectual property protection by the Hong Kong population. The Survey on Public Awareness of Intellectual Property Right Protection ?????????????? 2008 conducted by Mercador Solutions Associates Ltd...
WSJ Reports 90 Percent of China's Netizens Access Pirated Music
Posted on May 13, 2009Mira Veda of the Huffington Post writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that 90% of China's Web Users, which is estimated to be about 162 million people, access pirated music from their computers every day ... " Read here.Ms Veda, and with her many others, is doubting what the next best business model for the music industry will be in times of massive digital piracy: Google's advertising model (read 'Giving Away Music for Free to Destroy Copyright Piracy: Operation Succes, Patient Dead?') or France's three strikes system (read 'Taiwan's Three Strikes System Less Strict Than French Equivalent'), or some other model...
Taylor Wessing Global Intellectual Property Index and China: The Last Shall Be The First
Posted on May 13, 2009The People's Republic of China was ranked last (24th position) in the Taylor Wessing Global Intellectual Property Index 2009, see here. The methodology of the GIPI rating is a calculation by a factor assessment model with jurisdiction assessments and instrumental factors as input...
Promising News: China and UK Fast-Track Green Patent Applications
Posted on May 12, 2009Today the UK will start fast-tracking green patent applications, and China will follow suit. IAM Magazine 's Joff Wild has a very interesting blog about it called 'China and UK to fast-track green patent applications, according to British IP Minister'...
BSA Software Piracy Study: Taiwan 39 Percent, Ranks 23th Lowest
Posted on May 12, 2009Business Software Allicance (BSA) publishes its 2008 study of software piracy: May 2009, Sixth Annual BSA-IDG Software 08 Piracy Study.With 39 percent, Taiwan came in on the 23th position of the countries with the lowest software piracy, causing a 201 million US dollar loss in 2008 (215 million US dollar loss in 2007):Percentage software piracy Taiwan2008 39 percent2007 40 percent2006 41 percent2005 43 percent2004 43 percent
BSA Software Piracy Study: Hong Kong 48 Percent, Ranks Average
Posted on May 12, 2009Business Software Allicance (BSA) publishes its 2008 study of software piracy: May 2009, Sixth Annual BSA-IDG Software 08 Piracy Study.With 48 percent, Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region whose software piracy ranking is between a country with a low and a country with a high software piracy percentage, causing a loss of 225 million US dollar in 2008 (224 million US dollar in 2007)...
BSA Software Piracy Study: China 80 Percent; Ranks 24th Highest
Posted on May 12, 2009Business Software Allicance (BSA) publishes its 2008 study of software piracy: May 2009, Sixth Annual BSA-IDG Software 08 Piracy Study.With 80 percent, China came in on the 24th position of the countries with the highest software piracy, causing a loss of 6,677 billion US dollar in 2008 (6,664 billion US dollar loss in 2007): "China?s piracy rate has dropped 10 points since 2004, a result of more vigorous enforcement and education as well as vendor legalization programs andagreements with original equipment manufacturers(OEMs) and resellers...
Little Red Book About Xiao Nei: "A Great Example of Digital Copycatting Done Right"
Posted on May 12, 2009Rand Han of Little Red Book has another great article. This time he has used, analysed and deconstructed the social networking site Xiao Nei (at Campus) which is a blatant copycat of Facebook.Mr Han's blog posting does not lack humor: "Now while we normally associate copies with inferior quality or some odd defect from the original, Xiaonei, on the other hand, is a great example of digital copycatting done right...
Taiwan's Three Strikes Sanction Less Strict Than French Equivalent
Posted on May 12, 2009In the rebound the French Assemblée national adopted the Hadopi law today, which includes a "three strikes" sanction for file sharers of pirated works: repeat offenders will have their internet connection cut off after the third offense, see the France24...
Google Will Continue To Investigate Trademarks as Keywords in China, Hong Kong and Macau
Posted on May 12, 2009Imagine that your competitor can advertise with your name using Google AdWords. This nightmare can come true in the following jurisdictions: 'Regions for Which Google will not investigate the use of trademarks as keywords'. So far the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR are excluded from this practice...
Hon Hai versus BYD: IPR Infringement or Malicious Attack by a Rival?
Posted on May 11, 2009Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. sued Build Your Dreams (BYD) at a People's Court in Shenzhen for intellectual property infringement in technology needed for electrical cars. Hon Hai is Taiwan's leading outsourced manufacturing company for Apple's iPhone, HP, Sony and Nokia etc...
AmCham Gives Chinese Government Recommendations About Copyright Law, Trademark Law and Patent Law
Posted on May 11, 2009American Chamber of Commerce in the People's Republic of China (AmCham-China) issued the 'American Business in China White Paper 2009' last month. Pages 45-48 pdf, with pagenumbers 88-94 are about intellectual property rights protection. Read here.AmCham-China's recommendations to the Chinese government are:"Continue the pioneering efforts of the US Embassy and government in recent years, with greater internal coordination and cooperation with industry...
Professor Mossoff's Historical Paper About Patent Thicket, Patent Troll and Patent Pool: Relevant Today
Posted on May 05, 2009Can we learn from history? Or are we doomed to make the same mistakes over and over? Professor Adam Mossoff of George Mason University School of Law wrote an excellent paper about the Sewing Machine War of the 1850's which illustrates that the challenges we are facing in this day and age with patent thickets, patent trolls and patent pools are not new...
Knockoff Phones Explode And Not Just the Volume
Posted on May 05, 2009Knockoff mobile phones such as Apple (hi-phone), Nokia (Nckia), Samsung (Sumsang), that sometimes explode or have high radiation, are immensely popular in China, 20 percent of this biggest market in the world! The phones are also exported to Russia, India, Middle East, Europe and US...
IIPA: "China and Russia Remain Major Concerns for Copyright Industries"
Posted on May 03, 2009The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has made a statement on USTR?s decisions in its 2009 Special 301 Review affecting copyright protection and enforcement around the world. No real surprises, including that the IIPA commends USTR for the decision to elevate Canada to the Priority Watch List...
Happy World Intellectual Property Day 2009
Posted on April 26, 2009IP Dragon wishes you a happy World Intellectual Property Day 2009. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has chosesn a very relevant theme for this year's World Intellectual Property Day: promoting green innovation. WIPO takes responsibility for the polution that is connected with technology protected by intellectual property rights: technology has created polution, but technology has also the potential to come up with solutions for this problem...
"China Will Reshape International Intellectual Property Policy"
Posted on April 22, 2009I just read a great paper by Andrea Wechsler 'Intellectual Property Law in the P.R. China: A powerful Economic Tool for Innovation and Development', Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition & Tax Law Research Paper No. 09-02, November 12, 2008, download at SSRN here...
Is There Anything Original To A Geely GE?
Posted on April 21, 2009At the 2009 Shanghai Auto Show the Chinese Geely GE gives its acte de présence. Richard S. Chang wrote: "By all accounts the limo is a shameless (if not slightly shorter in length) knock-off of the Rolls-Royce Phantom." Read Chang's blog for the NYT here...
?A new dawn for the China health-care or? Grand theft IP??
Posted on April 19, 2009Guest article by Miko?aj RogowskiBack in January, Chinese government announced another one of its subsidies. This time around public health-care is the target and a sum of $128 billion is the weapon. It is no secret that it is another of Beijing?s measures of calming the nation during the year of the economic slow down, however anyone who has been in a public hospital in China will tell you that the system is indeed in need of the equipment and drugs that can be bought with such a substantial sum...
Green Gold Rush: The Interview, The Movie
Posted on April 19, 2009Laurent Gaberelle told me that he made a video documentary called Green Gold Rush about bioprospecting (the exploration of biodiversity for commercially valuable genetic and bio-chemical resources) and indigenous peoples. See the video here.The InterviewIP Dragon: Is traditional knowledge what the developed world wanted to give (as some would say "small change") to the developing world in exchange for their enforcement of the economically more important intellectual property rights of copyrights, trademarks and patents?Laurent Gaberelle: "The rhetoric of biopiracy has emerged as a political discourse and strategy to counter the piracy rhetoric that MNCs used to justify the enforcement of stronger and stronger intellectual property rights in the geopolitical South...
IP Dragon's Worldwide Review of Seizures and Measures Against Counterfeit and Pirated Goods Originating from China
Posted on April 17, 2009This article will be a work in process, because everytime I will come across news about a country that seized counterfeit or pirated goods originating from China I will add the link, so that a worldwide overview will emerge. If you find articles about activities against infringed goods from China in exotic places (or if such a countery has any link with infringement originating from China), feel free to send me the links...
Consumers International Says UK Has Worse Copyright Regime Than China... Nonsense Says Sharkey
Posted on April 17, 2009Thank goodness it is Friday. Consumers International did a survey on the intellectual property laws and enforcement practices of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, the UK and the US, see here...
Music Copyright Fees for Television and Radio Announced
Posted on April 17, 2009Picture: TV History JLM Pacific Epoch (China Business Headlines & Analysis from JL McGregor & Company) translated a report by West China City Daily quoting Chinese composer Xu Peidong that China's National Publishing Administration plans to set up copyright fees of 2...
Zhongnanhai Cigarettes? White House Cigars? Kremlin Wodka?
Posted on April 16, 2009Xin Dingding and Wang Huazhong report on an anti-tobacco non-governmental organisation (NGO) called Think Tank Research Center for Health Development, that submitted a petition on April 14, 2009 to the Beijing Trademark Office to stop the use of Zhongnanhai, the complex of buildings in Beijing which serves as the central headquarters of the Communist Party of China, as a trademark for ...
Do ACTA Member Countries Want to Confront China With A Fait Accompli?
Posted on April 16, 2009Since April 9, when I blogged 'China and ACTA: Why the problem is not made part of the solution', new information about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has leaked, see Wikileaks here. It makes you realise how transparent the founding parties to ACTA want to be...
Silk Market Vendors of Counterfeit Goods Terrorise Law Firm
Posted on April 10, 2009Remember 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...
Faustian Pact Anno 2009: Receive Counterfeit Products, Lose Your Soul
Posted on April 10, 2009You might have seen the movie 'The Devil Wears Prada'. A more empirical title could be 'The Devil Sells fake Prada'. Research conducted by Duke and MIT professor Dan Ariely (author of Predictably Irrational) found out that owning a counterfeit product significantly corrupts your morality...
China and ACTA: Why Is The Problem Not Made Part Of The Solution?
Posted on April 09, 2009Medio December 2008 IP Dragon wrote about the controversial genesis of the China-less Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) by Japan and the US (joined by Australia, Canada, the European Union, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Singapore and Switzerland) whose goal it is to stem the tide of counterfeit and pirated goods that originate for the lion share from China, read here...
Sweet US ITC Victory Over Sucralose Patents For Chinese Manufacturers
Posted on April 09, 2009Complainants:Tate & Lyle Technology Limited of London, United Kingdom;Tate & Lyle Sucralose, Inc. of Decatur, IL.Versus Respondents:AIDP, Inc. of City of Industry, CA; Beijing Forbest Chemical Co., Ltd. of China;Beijing Forbest Trade Co., Ltd...
Center Stage for Background Music: Collective Society Victorious Against Supermarket
Posted on April 08, 2009Mena Lo and Lilian Shi of Wilkinson & Grist China wrote a short article about a copyright infringement case the Music Copyright Society of China brought against Beijing MerryMart Chain Stores.The Beijing Haidian District People's Court awarded only 500 Renminbi damages...
Giving Away Music For Free to Destroy Copyright Piracy: Operation Success, Patient Dead?
Posted on April 06, 2009Google is trying to get a bit closer to Baidu, the number one search engine in China. Therefore it is offering the users of google.cn free music downloads. It is legal, because all copyright holders have given permission. Murad Ahmed of the Times Online wrote: "The service is supported by 140 record labels, including the big four (Warner Music, Universal, EMO, Sony BMG), and will earn revenue from advertising on pages that let Chinese web users download or stream licensed music ? 350,000 tracks are already available, with plans to have more than a million tracks within a few months...
Guidelines of the Supreme People's Court on Implementing the National IP Strategy
Posted on April 06, 2009Last year China's State Council promulgated the National IP Strategy ("National IP Strategy 2008: Feasible Commitments or Road to Nowhere Paved with Good Intentions" read here), a roadmap that must lead China to become one of the most innovative countries by 2020...
IPR Enforcement in China via Inversed Trojan Horse: LVMH Invites China Investment Corporation to Take An Equity Stake
Posted on April 05, 2009March 16, Tim LeeMaster wrote for the South China Morning Post, the English language newspaper of Hong Kong, that China Investment Corporation is considering to take an equity stake of 10 percent in the French luxury goods company LVMH. Head tip to the China Economic Review, read here...
How to Protect Traditional Chinese Medicine?
Posted on April 01, 2009Recently I have been corresponding about Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and which intellectual property rights (IPR) can protect them. I just read Mr or Ms Jia's interesting paper on TCM (Jia Q., The World Health Organization, 'Traditional Chinese Medicine Could Make "Health for One" [Come] True', 2006) which includes a very interesting chapter on intellectual property rights: 4...
Professor Lessig Went To Beijing to Warn China Against ...
Posted on March 29, 2009... US copyright policyMr Brett Gaylor, a Canadian from Montreal wrote and directed a thought provoking documentary 'RIP: A Remix Manifesto', which can be seen in 13 chapters via the internet, see here, which is an open invitation to remix it. The movie criticises copyright laws and intellectual property laws in general that constrain creativity instead of stimulate it...
Neither US Nor China Appeals Against WS/DS362 report
Posted on March 24, 2009Ms Kaitlin Mara has an excellent post on Intellectual Property Watch about the acceptance of and reactions to the WTO Dispute Settlement Report (WS/DS362) by the US and China. China is expected to tell how it will implement the changes that are prescribed by the report...
Video Copyright Piracy Enforcement in China Comes of Age
Posted on March 24, 2009Andy Greenberg wrote two great articles for Forbes about video copyright piracy in China.In 'Video Piracy's China Syndrome' he writes that "[a]ccording to date from copyright-fingerprinting start-up Vobile, the number of copyright-infringing videos on some Chinese sites like Ku6 and Youku has jumped more than six-fold between September 2007 and September 2008 [...
Interview with Mr Joseph Simone About Which Steps The US Could Take in regard to IPR in China
Posted on March 19, 2009IP Dragon's Danny Friedmann asked foreign registered lawyer and IPR in China specialist Mr Joseph Simone of Baker & McKenzie in Hong Kong about which course of action the US could take after the decision, WTO DS 362 Report, by the dispute settlement panel on United States? complaint against ?China ? Measures affecting the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights...
The Future of Innovation in China: "China Will Overtake Position Germany in 20 years" Or "Not in Our Life Time"
Posted on March 19, 2009I just listened to the IP Think Tank Podcast of February 16, 2009 which is an initiative of Duncan Bucknell Company. Besides an interesting review of the WTO report on DS 362, the IP Think Tank Podcast has a lot to offer to any IPR enthusiast. At the end, Mr Nicholas Redfearn, Rouse country manager in Hong Kong, told about two recent books that convey two diametrical opposite views of China's path to patent and innovation growth (the assumption implied is that there is a strong correlation between the growth of patents and innovation in a country)...
How to Sanction Lack of IPR Enforcement in China: Priority Watch List (IILA) or Foreign Country/Section 306 Monitoring Status (IACC)
Posted on March 18, 2009The International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition (IACC) is an organisation that represents companies concerned with trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy. The IACC submitted the following recommendations to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) in their annual Special 301 review of intellectual property protection issues in foreign countries...
81.5 percent of Counterfeit Products in Japan originates from China
Posted on March 16, 2009The Japan Times is running (and has probably translated) Kyodo News' article about Japan's Finance Ministry that stated that 81.5 percent of counterfeit products come from China.Japan's 9 customs housed handled 26,415 cases of fake imported goods in 2008, up 16...
Multinationals Strengthen Their Commitment to China; But Are Scared By IPR Challenges
Posted on March 11, 2009Booz & Company conducted a study (survey under 108 foreign invested manufacturing companies) together with the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai to see what the influence is of the economic crisis on their commitment of doing business in China...
AMP: "Economic Crisis Should Make German Government Act More Agressively Against Counterfeiters"
Posted on March 09, 2009Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) interviewed Rüdiger Stihl, chairman of the Aktionskreises gegen Produkt- und Markenpiraterie (APM). The resulting article at the site of N24 (in German) gives a good overview of the damages that are caused by counterfeit products originating from China (for 75 percent) and Turkey (10 percent) and the measures that APM is proposing...
Why STAs are Different From EPAs/FTAs and Influencing IPR norms is Preferable to Being Influenced
Posted on March 03, 2009Why Intellectual Property Rights In China Don't Come Naturally
Posted on February 24, 2009I was delighted to receive the learned paper of Charles R. Stone, published in the Marquette Law Review, Vol. 92, p. 199, 2008. It is called 'What Plagiarism Was Not: Some Preliminary Observations on Classical Chinese Attitudes toward what the West Calls Intellectual Property'...
Chinese Counterfeit Products Distort Sub-Saharan Market
Posted on February 23, 2009Great 2008 article by David Rocks and Alex Halperin for BusinessWeek. They write that the manufacturers of low cost high volume products such as shoe polish, ball pens and tooth brushes in African countries, such as Uganda, meet a lot of IPR challenges originating from China...
MOU on IPR Between Philippines and Taiwan
Posted on February 23, 2009Taiwan and the Philippines try to develop a so called Subic-Clark-Kaohsiung Corridor. Taiwan is located north of the Philippines, with the Taiwanese city Kaohsiung in the South. Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway is the longest toll expressway of the Philippines...
"Keepin' it real fake"
Posted on February 15, 2009Engadget, the second most popular blog, according to Technorati has tagged "Keepin' it real fake" as KIRF. In this category gadgets originating from China are frequently showed. Such as a Samsung knock-off called the Sumsang etc, etc.See their overview here.
WTO Report DS362: "Panellist On Your Marks, Get Set, Decide"
Posted on February 09, 2009The first thing the WTO panel did was to get translations of the People's Republic of China's both countries agreed upon (so called mutally agreed translations, forteen of them)./* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:SimSun; panose-1:2 1 6 0 3 1 1 1 1 1; mso-font-alt:??; mso-font-charset:134; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 135135232 16 0 262145 0;} @font-face {font-family:"\@SimSun"; panose-1:2 1 6 0 3 1 1 1 1 1; mso-font-charset:134; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 135135232 16 0 262145 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p...
WTO Report DS362
Posted on February 08, 2009We have been waiting even before 10 April 2007, because a dispute between the US and the People's Republic of China regarding the protection and enforcement of intellectual property in China, was in the air. Finally the WTO panel published their conclusion on 26 January 2009, read here...
Huawei Top PCT Applicant 2008; China Sixth Largest User of PCT
Posted on January 29, 2009The People's Republic of China has the ambition to shift its manufacturing based economy to a knowledge based economy. Therefore Chinese companies need to innovate, and protect their innovations by patents, internationally.If a company registers its patent in one country, it is only protected in that country...
Coming Up: China - Costa Rica Free Trade Agreement
Posted on January 21, 2009After Chile and Peru, Costa Rica is the third Latin American country that is to negociate a free trade agreement with China. Read the AFP article here. Free trade agreements can play an important role in the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights...
Copycats in China: Trains, Plains and ... Automobiles
Posted on January 21, 2009Planes, traines and ... automobiles. Chinese copycats in all modes of transport. After this ruling by the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court against Zhongwei's Zonda A9 that found the latter copying the MAN AG's Neoplan Starliner, one might wonder whether Hillmann (of Iven & Hillmann, see below) who described Zonda A9 as a "vivid example of how rapid and uninhibited the Chinese are when it comes to copying," was in fact defamatory, as was alleged by Zonda...
IP Dragon Weekend Game: Dyslectic Or Counterfeit
Posted on January 18, 2009Ms Hannah Wood has an intriguing article about names very similar to famous ones in China. See Ms Wood's article with pictures, here. Can you guess which are the original brands? The answer can be found by clicking on the links. Pizza HuhBucksstar coffeeo Mc McDnoald'sDamaAdidosFarrariKLCLexus = Lexus, but they do not make children's bikeLokastaMak DakNaikNoklaNo more flakesPolystationSoniaPanosaonicA&G
Poisonous Optima Dog Food: Product Liability Or Blame The Counterfeiters?
Posted on January 17, 2009Mr Ryan McLaughlin, blogger of Life in Suzhou, wrote about the death of Addie his beloved Golden Retriever around Christmas, read here. According to Mr McLauglin the cause is probably poisonous dog food. Addie was fed dog food from Optima, which is sold by food giant Mars, Inc...
Electric Guitar Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition Makes Itself Heard Against Beijing Infringers
Posted on January 16, 2009IP Dragon welcomes a new organisation that will fight the manufacturers of and traders in counterfeit guitars. The Electric Guitar Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition (EGACC), founded by four guitar manufacturers; Ibanez, Gretsch, Fender and Paul Reed Smith, in March 2008 and will lobby government authorities to enforce their intellectual property laws better against counterfeiting...
Indian High Court Claims Jurisdiction Against Chinese Cybersquatter of ICICIGROUP.COM
Posted on January 16, 2009Malathi Nayak of Livemint has a very interesting article about who has the jurisdiction over Chinese entities if they infringe intellectual property rights via the internet. In this case a Chinese entity had registered the domain name icicigroup.com which is similar to icicibank...
Zen And the Art Of Intellectual Property in China
Posted on January 15, 2009I love that title (remix of perfect book title: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig, which is a remix of the title Zen in the Art of Archery, by Eugen Herrigel who brought Zen to Europe after WOII), and have repeated it like a mantra...
World Trademark Review: "US crowns China top of the counterfeiters"
Posted on January 15, 2009Adam Smith of the World Trademark Review wrote an article that put a few of the actual news events into perspective.: The news of the US customs that the People's Republic of China is number one origin of counterfeit goods seized in the US, Chinese ministers that held a meeting (12 January 2009) on the country?s National Intellectual Property Strategy, about which I wrote 'Feasible commitments or Road to nowhere paved with good intententions'...
US Customs Seizure Statistics 2008: "China number one, India number two and Hong Kong number three counterfeit producer"
Posted on January 14, 2009The U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and U.S. Customs Enforcement divisions of Homeland Security gives some statistics about the numbers, characteristics and origins of counterfeit goods seized in the U.S. in 2008.IPR seizures of goods from China rose 40 % by value in 2008...
IP Dragon Wins Danwei's Olympic Model Worker Award 2008
Posted on January 14, 2009IP Dragon is proud and happy to have received Danwei's Model Worker Award for 2008 ("the best of the China blogs"), in the category Law & Intellectual Property, for the second time in a row (2007). Only this time the award's name was changed into Olympic Model Worker 2008...
IP Dragon Writes Book About Intellectual Property in China
Posted on January 14, 2009Dear readers, I am delighted to announce that I am writing a book for Oxford University Press about intellecual property rights in China. It will be published in 2010.I thank all the (anonymous) peer reviewers that have given feedback to my book proposal...
All Clichés But Still True: Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement in China Leaves Room For Improvement
Posted on January 13, 2009France24 reports in a 2 minutes 51 seconds video (from April 2008) about the rampant violations of IPR in China and the insufficient measures to tackle the problem. One big déjà vu all over again...We see the familiar in this short video: the inevitability of a visual spectacle of destruction of counterfeit DVDs; a Chinese official determined to enforce IPRs (Mr Lin Binjie, Deputy Director, National Anti-Pornography and Anti-Illegal Publications Work Group);Silk Street Market and some mini-interviews with pedestrians about fake products; An IPR right holder, in this case Ms Fang Fang, Chief Representative of luxury goods producer Pierre Cardin China tells that she is called "tout les temps" by licensees that have found a counterfeiter and it is operating...
Professor Daniel Gervais' New Book Includes: Confidential Interim Report DS 362
Posted on January 13, 2009Who won the IPR dispute at the WTO between China and the U.S.? That was the name of my blog posting in October 2008 and gave some leaked information. But what does the official information say? According to WTO document WT/DS362/9, that can be found at the site of the WTO dedicated to DS 362 the Panel expected to issue its final report to the parties to the dispute by November 2008...
Microsoft Anti-Piracy: Are Your Eyes Shining Because of China's IPR Enforcement Efforts or Shenzhen's Efforts?
Posted on January 13, 2009Xinhua reported that the Shenzhen Futian Court on 7 January 2009 sentenced 11 people who violated Chinese criminal and copyright laws to make pirated Microsoft software and distribute copies to Australia, Canada, Germany, the United States and other countries...
Japanese Companies Can Register Chinese Copyights in Japan: save 50 percent time
Posted on January 13, 2009Copyright is an automatic right, which arises when it is created. (because of the 'no formalities provision' of the article 5 (2) Berne Convention). However you can register your copyright with China's National Copyright Administration, which can be helpful to establish prima face evidence, for example ownership...
Trademarks in China: Nomen Est Omen
Posted on January 12, 2009Stan Abrams of China Hearsay fame blogged about why the car manufacturer SAIC choose for the name Roewe and how to pronounce that name. He contemplates that: "As a Chinese brand, the English name is of secondary importance. However, if you?re going to use the English brand prominently (and they do), you gotta give it some thought, especially if you want to be a major exporter...
Does China Export In Violation of License EU Train Technology Back To Europe?
Posted on January 12, 2009Mr Philippe Mellier, CEO of Alstom Transport, the second manufacturer (after Bombardier Transportation) of high-speed trains, locomotives and metro cars, is calling on countries for a boycot of Chinese trains according to the Financial Times, here. In an interview Mr Mellier said that China was closing its domestic market;Chinese companies export trains that use foreign technologies...
Well Known and Less Known Aspects Of Well-Known Marks
Posted on January 07, 2009In the USTR 2008 Report to Congress on China's WTO compliance on page 4, one can read the following remarkable sentence:"...the promotion of famous Chinese brands of merchandise using what appear to be prohibited forms of financial support, ..."So it appears to be a prohibited form of financial support, but the USTR is not totally sure about it? First China was encouraged to protect well-known marks, and now that they do...
USTR in 2008 Report to Congress On China's WTO Compliance: Still Not Satisfied After All These Years
Posted on January 07, 2009One of the priority issues in the 115 page 2008 Report to Congress On China's WTO Compliance, released by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) in December is, unsurprisingly, the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in China...
Slow As A Turtle? Copyright Protection Expiration in China: Lifetime Plus Fifty
Posted on January 05, 2009IP Dragon's feline friend has an interesting post December 31, 2008, about the expired protection of copyrights for authors that died seventy years ago, including the painter Wang Zhen (1867-1938), read Mr Jeremy Phillips' article for IP Kat here.According to article 20 Copyright Law PR of China the rights of authorship, alteration and integrity of an author shall be unlimited in time...
EU Experience and Practice Must Show China The Way Concerning IPR Protection At Exhibitions
Posted on January 05, 2009It is crucial for companies to showcase their new products to the world at trade fairs and exhibitions. Hower, these places welcome potential customers but also IPR infringers.To make the bonafide exhibitors less vulnerable to IPR infringements and deal with the IPR infringers that also have come to the trade fairs, the IPR2 (EU-China Project on Protecting Intellectual Property Rights, 10...
Comparison Between The IPR in China Relevant Provisions Of the Foreign Trade Law 2004 and 1994
Posted on January 05, 2009I have just added links to the Foreign Trade Law of the People's Republic of China 1994 and 2004 on IP Dragon's blogroll ( under "IPR in China Laws and Regulations").The IPR relevant article 6 Foreign Trade Law 1994 is almost identical to article 6 Foreign Trade Law 2004 (most favoured nation treatment and national treatment because of articles 4 and 4 TRIPs, respectively, before 2001 because of article 5 (1) Berne and aricle 3 Paris Conventions) Article 14 Foreign Trade Law 1994 is similar to article 13 Foreign Trade Law 2004 (the departments that get information from the foreign trade operaters should keep business secrets to themselves, see pages 15-16 Thesis)...
Thesis and Publications About IPR in China
Posted on December 20, 2008Thesis: 'Paper Tiger or Roaring Dragon, China's TRIPs Implementations and Enforcement'BMM Bulletin Paper: 'How to work within China's IPR enforcement system for trademark and design rights'Article: 'How to prevent and act upon intellectual property rights infringements in China'Article: 'How do the People's Republic of China and Hong Kong relate to each other regarding IPRs'Netherlands Hong Kong Society article: 'Intellectual Property Rights in HK and China'Guest blog for BIZZ: 'China and intellectual property' (Dutch)
Judge For Yourself: Does Online Game Maker Miu! Infringe IPR?
Posted on December 19, 2008Hau~ Omochikaeri~!, a blog by Micchi and Nemuiwanko about massively multiplayer online games, accuse that Miu! World plagiarise characters of Ragnarok Online, World of Warcraft, Maple Story and possibly other games in their online game Aurore Blade. The blog includes two changing pictures of the alleged original and alleged copycat characters...
Beer and Logic: If Taiwan Beer Is Sold In China Trademark Issue Is Solved In China
Posted on December 18, 2008a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Beer"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281214080180641058" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 192px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_T8Z9f-Xvo_g/SUqkOY_1XSI/AAAAAAAAAnc/0PB43XXvT-E/s200/TaiwanBeer...
China Ready To Make Money With Homebred 3G Standard TD-SCDMA
Posted on December 17, 2008a href="http://www.chinamobileltd.com/"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280848277219682226" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 185px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 42px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_T8Z9f-Xvo_g/SUlXh2xpp7I/AAAAAAAAAnU/nLLqPKZ-ico/s320/China+Mobile...
"Eli Lilly Lobbies on Counterfeiting And Regulatory Issues Involving China"
Posted on December 17, 2008a href="http://www.lilly.com/"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280826945262150914" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 102px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 60px" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_T8Z9f-Xvo_g/SUlEILCpZQI/AAAAAAAAAnM/9Nx3oTlQKlg/s320/lilly...
More Brooms Sweep Cleaner: Expansion of IPR Tribunals in China
Posted on December 17, 2008a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/swamibu/2720444418/"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280797476063117298" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 217px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 124px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_T8Z9f-Xvo_g/SUkpU1uFf_I/AAAAAAAAAnE/EdFripVnuOY/s320/brooms...
Word On Wednesday: The Influence of the Financial Crisis On The Enforcement of Intellectual Property In China
Posted on December 17, 2008div align="center"strongGetting ready for stormy weather/strongbr /br //divpa href="http://www.flashbag.blogspot.com/"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280788803015839330" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2...
First Coordinated EU Customs Campaign Catches 34 Million Counterfeit Medicines
Posted on December 16, 2008Reuters reports that the customs officials of the 27 EU members worked together to intercept counterfeit antibiotics, anti-cancer, anti-malaria and anti-cholesterol medicines, painkillers and Viagra."The main countries of origin for the illegal products were China, India and Pakistan, a [European] Commission official said...
Columbia Sportswear Succesful In Reducing Counterfeits in China
Posted on December 16, 2008Ms Laura Wood writes in MarketWatch that Columbia Sportswear Company, a manufacturer of active outdoor apparel (which included the brands Montrail, Mountain Hardwear, Pacific Trail and Sorel) has been succesful in implementing an anti-counterfeiting programme with local, national and international law enforcement agencies and that "[i]n 2007 it staged 60 successful raids on factories manufacturing counterfeit products in China...
China and Russia Sign Intellectual Property Agreement For Military-Technical Cooperation
Posted on December 16, 2008According to a translation by RIA Novosti of the Russian newspapers Vedomosti and Kommersant, the Russian-Chinese inter-governmental commission for military-technical cooperation met in Beijing for the first time in the past three years to sign an agreement on copyright [what is probably meant is intellectual property, including copyright IP Dragon] protection in the field of military-technical cooperation on December 11, 2008...
Drafting An Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement: Where is China?
Posted on December 15, 2008The drafting of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was, and to a lesser extent still is, shrouded in secrecy. There has been a lot of criticism about the lack of transparency in the negotiation process and drafting of ACTA. Only a leakage in 2007 provided a draft version of ACTA, see here (4 pages pdf)...
Must Read Monday: "Shan Zhai Ji" in Google.cn Most Searched List
Posted on December 15, 2008Sky Canaves and Juliet Ye of the Wall Street Journal's China Journal Blog dealt with the top ten lists of Google.cn 2008. Although most Chinese use Baidu, and Google is used by some of the higher educated Chinese, the most searched terms can give an indication of what is hot and what is not in China...
Comments on Judicial Interpretations of Determination of Well-Known Trademark
Posted on December 08, 2008Mr Jing 'Brad' Luo, JD candidate, May 2009 at the SMU Dedman School of Law and Professor Shubha Ghosh at the University of Wisconsin Madison, School of Law, wrote a paper about the subject called: 'Protection and Enforcement of Well-Known Mark Rights in China: History, Theory and Future...
Not So Smooth As Shampooed Hair: Copyright Font Infringement. Founder Electronics Sues P&G and Carrefour
Posted on December 08, 2008Do you remember Founder Electronics sueing Blizzard Entertainment, August 2007 for copyright font infringement? Read here. Now the People's Daily Online reports that Founder Electronics has filed a suit against Procter & Gamble (P&G) in Guangzhou, Guangdong province and Carrefour in Beijing, also for copyright font infringement...
Hu Jintao And The Three Supremes Or Do You Rather Listen To Diana Ross?
Posted on December 08, 2008Intellectual Property Law in China, of course, is not an insulated part of Chinese Law. A fortiori, it is an integral part of it. So those who are interested in IPR in China, could take notice to China's legal reforms of the last thirty years.Ms Sky Canaves, lead writer for the WSJ's China Journal, visited the Foreign Correspondents Club of Hong Kong Thursday to give the highlights Mr Jerome Cohen's speech...
China IPR Law Firms and Agents: Haseltine Lake Chooses Guangzhou
Posted on December 08, 2008IP Dragon ????? congratulates Haseltine Lake for its new representative office in Guangzhou, Guangdong province and welcomes this firm into IP Dragon's blogroll in the category 'China IPR Law Firms and Agents'.This firm that has already an office in Londen, Bristol, Leeds (UK) and Munich, Germany, has now also a presence in the People's Republic of China...
Japan Sake Brewers' Hangover After Chinese Trademark Squatting
Posted on December 04, 2008Japanese sake and shochu brewers that want to start exporting to China were not amused when they found out that their brands have been registered by Chinese trademark squatters, that want to sell the trademarks to the Japanese brewers, especially since 2004...
New Blogroll Category: IP in China Conference Agenda
Posted on December 04, 2008Conferences and seminars are great places to brush up your knowledge, meet potential clients and your peers and to have fun. To facilitate that you find these wateringholes of wisdom about intellectual property in China, IP Dragon ????? starts with a new blogroll category: Agenda for Intellectual Property in China conferences and seminars...
Piracy Distributes Guns N' Roses Album in China
Posted on December 03, 2008Mr Dean Goodman writes for Reuters that Guns N' Roses' Geffen Records label is not trying to sell the ChiDem album in China, because it is thinks it will not approved by China's censors, mainly because of its title Chinnese D-mocraxy, read here.Mr Goodman: "China's culture ministry has the final say on such matters, although rampant piracy makes the job difficult...
Why There is Plagiarism in China Even At Sun Yat-sen University
Posted on December 03, 2008Peter who is a Yale-China Teaching Fellow teaching English classes at Sun Yat-sen University and runs the China DTR blog, has a nice posting called 'Where's Your Academic Integrity' about widespread plagiarism in his class."Plagiarism in our classroom was a surprise because at the beginning of the semester we explained why plagiarism was bad, the consequences of plagiarism such as getting a zero and being kicked out of class, and then had the students sign a contract vowing that they would not plagiarize...
China Leads IP5 Meeting on Jeju Island in South Korea
Posted on December 03, 2008October 27 and 28, 2008, the IP5 European Patent Office (EPO), Japan Patent Office (JPO), Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), China's State Intellectual Property Organisation (SIPO) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) came together for the second time, this year on the beautiful vulcanic island of Jejudo, South Korea...
Apple Victorious In Trademark Conflict With New Apple Concept Digital Technology
Posted on December 03, 2008Apple, Inc. won trademark case against New Apple Concept Digital Technology Co Ltd based in Shenzhen.The Intermediate People's Court in Shenyang, the capital of the Liaoning Province, ordered New Apple Concept Digital Technology Co., Ltd., on 2 November to pay 400,000 yuan (58,000 U...
Change in Nanchang: Internet Cafes Required To Switch To Legal Software
Posted on December 03, 2008Mr Sumner Lemon writes for IDG News Service that Nanchang, capital of Jiangxi province, requires net cafes to switch to legal software. If they don't they can lose their license.Read Mr Sumner's article via Networkworld here.UPDATEMr Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, Cyber Cynic for Computerworld critisises that the owners of internet cafes caught with illegal software are forced to switch to Red Flag Linux...
New Face At Baidu Awaits Considerable Intellectual Property Conflicts
Posted on December 03, 2008Ms Loretta Chao of the WSJ's China Journal wrote about the appointment of the new general manager digital entertainment of Baidu.com, Inc., Catherine Leung.The blog article ends with a most relevant paragraph:"The company has tried to solve its intellectual property conflicts by signing revenue-sharing deals to share profits from advertisements on its digital music search services with individual music labels...
China's Trademark Office Performs First Trademark Examination Quality Control Inspection
Posted on December 03, 2008Ms Mena Lo and Elaine Mak of Wilkinson & Grist China wrote a brief for IAM Magazine on the China Trademark Office's first trademark examination quality control inspection, after CTMO's officials exchanged experiences with China's Patent Office and and study case management systems used by IP authorities in the United States and the European Union...
Negotiating With IP Infringers in China As A Last Resort
Posted on December 03, 2008Mr Mark A. Lieberstein and Stephen W. Feingold (both working for Day Pitney LLP) were interviewed by Mr Albert W. Driver, editor of the Metropolitan Corporate Counsel. The interview, which has the title 'Keys to Enforceing Intellectual Property Rights in China' includes an interesting quote from Mr Lieberstein:"While not the preferred approach for enforcing IP in China, negotiation can work if you reach out through a third-party in China to approach the counterfeiter and work out a deal; it can also save time and money...
The Importance of 'Practical Applicability' in China's Patent Law
Posted on December 03, 2008Ms Ester H. Lim (Finnegan Shanghai) and Ms Angela Y. Dai (Finnegan Washington, D.C.) wrote a nice article about their take on IP in China for the WorldTrade Magazine called 'Policy Perspectives: The Current Reality with IP in China'.It includes a discription of the case Merck & Co...
It's that time of the year again: China Blog Awards
Posted on December 02, 2008IP Dragon ????? is flattered that it again is nominated for the China Blog Awards, edition 2008, by Chinalyst. However, due to very unfortunate circumstances the competition this year does not include China Law Blog, which won the China Blog Awards 2007, read here...
Intellectual Property in China? You have come to the right place
Posted on November 25, 2008IP Dragon ????? is published in English, the de facto lingua franca of the academic and business world. By translating the sentence intellectual property in China in some other languages than English IP Dragon ????? welcomes the people that search with the following key words:??????? ??????? ?? ????? ????????????? ??????????? ? ?????la propietat intellectual a la Xina??????????????intelektualnog vlasni?tva u Kinidu?evního vlastnictví v ?ín?intellektuel ejendomsret i Kinaintellectuele eigendom in Chinaari-ariang intelektwal sa Tsinateollis-ja tekijänoikeuksien Kiinassala propriété intellectuelle en Chinegeistigen Eigentums in China??????????? ??????????? ???? ????????? ????? ???? ??? ??? ??????? ?????kekayaan intelektual di Cinaproprietà intellettuale in Cina???????????? ?? ???intelektu?lo ?pa?umu ??naintelektin?s nuosavyb?s Kinijaimmaterielle rettigheter i Kinaw?asno?ci intelektualnej w Chinachpropriedade intelectual na Chinade proprietate intelectual? în China???????????????? ????????????? ? ??????????????????? ?????????? ? ????du?evného vlastníctva v ?íneintelektualne lastnine na Kitajskemla propiedad intelectual en Chinaimmateriella rättigheter i Kina??????????????? ????????? ? ?????s? h?u trí tu? t?i Trung Qu?c
Hong Kong SAR and Peru Signed Cooperation Arrangement on Trade and Investment Facilitation
Posted on November 24, 2008China's Ministery of Commerce announced that the FTA with Peru will be effective next year, see here. Hong Kong S.A.R., which is a separate jurisdiction from the People's Republic of China, is not included in this agreement.Song Shutao of Xinhua wrote in May 2008 that Hong Kong S...
Again Harsh Words in US-China Economic Security Review Commission Report (2008) About Intellectual Property Protection/Enforcement in China
Posted on November 24, 2008In the 405 pages of the 2008 Report to Congress of the U.S.-China Economic and Security (USCC) Riew Commission (published November 2008) intellectual property is mentioned often and prominently:"China made scant progress in reining in the rampant counterfeiting and piracy that deprive legitimate foreign businesses operating in China of their intellectual property, while they provide an effective subsidy to Chinese companies that make use of stolen software and other advanced technology...
"Free Trade Agreement China-Peru Effective 2009"
Posted on November 24, 2008A Free Trade Agreement (Tratado de Libre Comercio Perú ? China) was announced at a summit in Lima, Peru, between President Alan Garcia and Hu Jintao, read CNN article about it here. Bi Mingxin of Xinhua wrote that a spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) told that the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the People's Republic of China and Peru will become effective in the second half of 2009, read here...
Transitional Review Mechanism of China?s TRIPs Implementations Q&A Copyright Law
Posted on November 17, 2008When China became the 143rd Member of the WTO on December 2001, it automatically entered into TRIPs, which is an integral part of the WTO Agreement. Upon accession to the WTO, China agreed (see Section 18 of the Protocol on the Accession of the People?s Republic of China WT/L/432) that the first eight years its commitments to align its IPR laws will be reviewed during an annual Transitional Review Mechanism (TRM) by the TRIPs Council...
Guest Writer Michiel Tjoe-Awie: 'Intellectual Property in Daily Life Beijing'
Posted on November 14, 2008Mr Michiel Tjoe-Awie has traveled extensively throughout China. Although he studied law he does not practise it, at the moment he is working as a banker. IP Dragon appreciates Mr Tjoe-Awie's sharp mind. He can write about almost anything. Sometimes in an entertaining, sometimes in a inquiring way, but always in an interesting way...
Creative Commons Hong Kong Launch
Posted on October 28, 2008Remember my post in 2005 about the Creative Commons license system that was adapted ('ported' in CC-speak) to the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China, read here. Ms Michelle Thorne wrote on the Creative Commons weblog that on October 25th, it was Hong Kong's turn...
China's NCA versus Microsoft: Pot Calling the Kettle Black?
Posted on October 28, 2008Last week Mr Yan Xiaohong, vice-president of the National Copyright Administration of the People's Republic of China (NCA Chinese) criticised Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage software, according to an AFP article. Mr Yan's has a problem that this system which turns computer desktops black every hour if the installed Windows XP operating system fails an authenticity validation test: "Measures for safeguarding (intellectual property) rights also need to be appropriate...
IP Lawfirms: Ms Ages Y. Leung and Ms Selena Y.Y. Sun Join Wilkinson & Grist's IP Practice Group
Posted on October 28, 2008Ms Leung Yang (Agnes) and Ms Sun Yuet Ying (Selena), are the new solicitors at the Intellectual Property Practice Group of Wilkinson & Grist. Read more here.Their colleagues are:PartnersAnne C.Y. ChoiYvonne ChuaAndrea S.Y. FongHoward H.L. TsangEsther W...
How do the People?s Republic of China and Hong Kong relate to each other regarding IPRs
Posted on October 17, 2008This article by Danny Friedmann (IP Dragon ?????) is also published at the site of Duncan Bucknell Company, the consulting firm that specialises in global intellectual property strategy, see here.Since 1997, Hong Kong is part of the People?s Republic of China (PRC)...
Who Won The IPR Dispute At The WTO Between China and the US?
Posted on October 13, 2008Remember April 10, 2007, when the US brought claims against China at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for allegedly violating the TRIPs Agreement because of unsufficient IPR enforcement (DS 362) and lack of market access (DS 363)? Read here. Mr Jonathan Lynn reports about DS 362 for Reuters that sources at the WTO have said that China won the dispute on two counts against one brought against it by the US for its allegedly ineffective enforcement of intellectual property rights...
AmCham to USTR: "Remove Taiwan From Special 301 Watch List"
Posted on October 07, 2008America's Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Taipei requested the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) to remove Taiwan from the Special 301 Watch List, a list of countries that are allegedly failing to adequately protect IPR and used as a trade tool...
Messrs. Reid and MacKinnon's Checklist on Protection of IPR in China
Posted on October 07, 2008Messrs. David McHardy Reid (Thomas F. Gleed chair of business administration at Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics) and Simon J. MacKinnon (president, Greater China, for Corning Ltd. in Shanghai), wrote a checklist about protecting intellectual property in China:Educate your employees;Don't tell your employees everything;Be quick with patent and trademark registration;Research and keep up with best practicesPut a top executive in charge of IP security, and think globally...
In South Korea Warner Bros First Releases Movies Online, Then Launches DVDs, China Could Be Next
Posted on October 06, 2008In April 2006 IP Dragon blogged about Warner Brothers dropping its price substantially as a new business strategy in China, read more here. Now it is experimenting in South Korea with releasing movies online first and then launching the sale of DVDs. China could be next...
"Microsoft Does Not Enforce Copyright Piracy in China Because of Network Externalities"
Posted on October 06, 2008Bill Gates said in 1998:"As long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours," he said of Chinese users, according to Fortune magazine. "They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade...
16 Copyright Piracy Suspects Identified During Operation Torpedo in Hong Kong
Posted on October 06, 2008According to a press release by Karri Ho from the International Federation Against Copyright Theft ? Greater China (IFACT-GC), from September 29 to October 1, IFACT-GC representing the Motion Picture Association (MPA) and the CJ Mark Committee (CJ Mark) in Hong Kong, which represents Japanese rights owners, joined forces with over 120 officers from the Hong Kong Customs Intellectual Property Investigation Bureau (IPIB) and the Special Task Force (STF) in a territory-wide anti-piracy operation against a series of distribution and retail outlets selling pirated optical discs in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region...
Total Makeover in Guiyu: "Recycling" Old Commercial Microchips As New Military Microchips
Posted on October 06, 2008Messrs. Brian Grow, Chi-Chu Tschang, Cliff Edwards and Brian Burnsed wrote the BusinessWeek article 'Dangerous Fakes' about old commercially grade microchips that are salvaged from discarded circuit boards and sold as military grade microships.They reported from Guiyu, Guangdong province, China:"Old chips are burned from circuit boards, workers wash them in the local river and sort them with brooms on the river bank, before they are carted off to shops and local markets...
Roger Bate determines China's Lethal Counterfeit Drugs Pattern
Posted on October 03, 2008Mr Roger Bate, writer of the book ?Making a Killing: The Deadly Implications of the Counterfeit Drug Trade (free pdf-version ),? wrote an article for the Far Eastern Economic Review that gives a good overview of China's counterfeit drug problems.Mr Bate notices that China's food scandals follow a lethal pattern:"Someone cuts a corner substituting an unsafe illegal product for a safe legal one; the legal entities trading in the product, which are often unaware of the illegal substitution, at first ignore the problem and then become embarrassed into a recall, often after pressure from foreign governments on Beijing...
WIPO Internet Treaties In Effect in Hong Kong After PRC
Posted on October 02, 2008The WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT), which are considered necessary to adapt the copyright law and related rights law to the challenges of digital technologies, came into effect in Hong Kong SAR (which is a separate jurisdiction from the People's Republic of China) on October 1st, 2008...
19th US-China JCCT: What are the Concrete Measures?
Posted on September 23, 2008September 16th US Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez and US Trade Representative Susan c. Schwab, together with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan convened the 19th US-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT). Read the press release of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) here...
China's National IP Strategy 2008: Feasible Commitments or Road to Nowhere Paved With Good Intentions
Posted on September 11, 2008This article by Danny Friedmann is also published at the site of Duncan Bucknell Company, the law firm that specialises in Global IP Strategy, see here.China's State Council promulgated a National Intellectual Property Strategy [1]. In the policy document there is a lot of talk about doing everything more efficient and more effective...
Wall Street Journal Blog Quotes IP Dragon in "Best of the China Blogs"
Posted on September 11, 2008Ms Sky Canaves is the lead writer of 'China Journal', a great blog about "How China is changing - and changing the world" for the Wall Street Journal. She also runs the 'Best of the China Blogs', a daily look at what she and her colleagues are reading...
New Draft Third Patent Law Amendment: Slight Improvements
Posted on September 10, 2008In the beginning of this year there was not much reason for optimism regarding the third patent law amendment, read 'Curb your enthousiasm. The earlier draft included the requirement that Chinese legal and natural persons must first apply for patents before making foreign applications...
Peter Ollier interviews Netac's Vincent Zhong
Posted on September 09, 2008Netac Technology was the first Chinese company that sued an American company, PNY Technologies of Texas, for patent infringement (USB flash memory). The two companies settled their patent dispute out of court in March, read more here.Mr Peter Ollier interviewed Mr Vincent Zhong, vice-president of Netac Technologies about the dispute...
"China biggest IP threat to Korea"
Posted on September 09, 2008Gallup Korea conducted a survey for Korea Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) about the perception of threats to Korean IP. 1,202 domestic firms said: Where was Korean IP infringed?65 percent in China; 12 percent Taiwan; 12 percent United States. In what sector did that happen?24 percent in electrics and electronics;22 percent in machinery;21 percent in textile and clothing...
Shanghai Signboards: We Sell Only Real Products, Really...
Posted on September 09, 2008Next month you can find in Shanghai 100 shops that have a ? (zhen1) sign in their window, which means that they only sell genuine products.The Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration will control and coordinate the distribution of the signboards...
Wanfang Data Accused of Unauthorised Inclusion of Dissertations
Posted on September 09, 2008480 accademics have accused Wanfang Data of including their dissertation without any permission in the database "Disseratations of China" that was offered to libraries. To make a work public without authorisation and to copy a work without authorisation is both copyright infringment...
PRC's Anti-Monopoly Law: Well-known Trademarks and Traditional Chinese Brands Are Part of National Security
Posted on September 01, 2008Mr Steve Dickinson of the China Law Blog wrote an insightful article about Anti -Monopoly Law of the People's Republic of China that became effective August 1, 2008.Article 31 Anti-Monopoly Law: Where national security is involved in the case of acquisition of domestic enterprises by foreign capital or the participation by foreign capital in the concentration of undertakings by other means, in addition to a review on the concentration in accordance with this Law, a review on national security shall also be conducted in accordance with the relevant laws and regulations...
The Longlife Trademark For Taiwan's Cigarettes is still not dead
Posted on August 26, 2008This morning I got this picture of Taiwanese cigarettes with the name Longlife. The picture is made by CH from Mobimania in Xiamen, China. First question. Is Longlife a trademarked brand in Taiwan? And what about China?If you type in "Longlife" in to the search engine of Taiwan's Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) you will find that there actually are several trademarks for cigarettes with the mark Longlife, the trademark holder is Taiwan Tabacco and Liquor Corporation...
Xiamen Cyberpolice Stealed the Logo of Microsoft's Internet Explorer?
Posted on August 13, 2008CH of Mobimania pointed me to the Xiamen cyberpolice who uses the logo of E of Internet Explorer, the browser of of Microsoft. Did they get permission to use it? See their website here.
Hong Kong's Top e-filers of Patent, Trademark and Design Right Applications
Posted on August 07, 2008According to the Intellectual Property Department (IPD) of the Hong Kong Government the top e-filers of all e-transactions in 2008 were: Ranking Firms 1 UNDISCLOSED 2 DEACONS 3 WILKINSON & GRIST 4 JSM 5 BAKER & MCKENZIE 6 SIT, FUNG, KWONG AND SHUM SOLICITORS 7 CLT PATENT & TRADEMARK (H...
Hong Kong Olympic Games: "Dress Code and Leave Branded Gifts At Home"
Posted on August 07, 2008Mr Stephen Selby, director of the Intellectual Property Department urges spectators to the Olympic equestrian (horses) event in Hong Kong to abide by the Olympic rules on brand protection and advertising. This means that in the Olympic stadium and venues you can not wear clothes with large or obvious advertising of a brand...
First Bar Ordered To Pay Damages For Copyright Infringements of Karaoke Songs
Posted on July 30, 2008In April the People's Court in the Chancheng district of Guangdong Province's Foshan city ordered Haoledi Entertainment Company, the karaoke bar management firm, to pay damanges of 30,000 yuan (4,286 U.S. dollars) by Beijing-based New Run Entertainment Company, a performance management and audio-visual production firm...
"Great Wall Motor Not Infringing Fiat's Patent"
Posted on July 30, 2008Reuters reports that Great Wall Motor Co Ltd made a statement saying that Fiat's claim that Great Wall infringing their patent was dismissed by Shijiazhuang Intermediate People's Court.Read the Reuters article here and the Great Wall Motor's statement here.
Face Saving Cultures Don't Like to Make An Apology
Posted on July 17, 2008Mr Piter de Weerd, editor of Boek9.nl (Dutch) Book9.nl (English), the excellent blog about intellectual property rights in the Netherlands, pointed me to the article ofSeattle Trademark Lawyer Mr Michael Atkins, who was startled about the remedies Japan's cosmetic giant Shiseido was seeking against the Chinese users of the Shidoas trademark: damages and ...
Discover Your Invention in China Or Lose Protection
Posted on July 03, 2008Ms Patti Waldmeir has another intesting article about the upcoming patent law in China. She rightly zoomed in on the controversial articles. In February I posted a blog about the articles 49, 50 and 74 of China's third amended patent law, entitled 'Curb your enthousiasm', read here...
Patent Quality in China: "You could patent a wheel"
Posted on July 03, 2008Ms Patti Waldmeir wrote a great article for the Financial Times about Chinese patents 'The value of branding becomes patent', read here.On the positive side Ms Waldmeir noticed that China is the country where most companies are filing for patents in China...
Freshfields appoints Mark Parsons as IP counsel
Posted on July 03, 2008Connie Carnabuci's Hong Kong Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer IP team has been strengthened by appointing Mark Parsons as counsel. See Freshfields' media release here.
Adidas Execs Don't Acknowledge Chinese Counterfeit Problem
Posted on July 03, 2008Ms Mei Fong wrote an interesting article in the WSJ about Adidas' efforts to become the number one in China by locating their biggest store there. Interestingly Ms Fong noticed the following: "Locating its biggest store in the world's biggest counterfeit market could be a challenge for Adidas, but it isn't one that its executives acknowledge...
Facebook Cloned in China
Posted on July 03, 2008British blogger 'I love China' has a great blog 'Xiao Nei - Now available in English', read here.
Future of Digital Copyright Protection in Hong Kong
Posted on July 01, 2008Tomorrow Professor Peter Yu (I was honoured that this prolific professor was my co-advisor when I was writing my thesis) and mr Charles Mok will give a lecture on the future of digital copyright protection in HK, at the University of Hong Kong.Read more here.
Chinese Copyright Law, Peer Production and the Participatory Media Age: An Old Regime In a New World
Posted on June 10, 2008Just found an interesting Chapter about Chinese Copyright Law, written by Mr Sampsung Xiaoxiang Shi, read here.Of course I am flattered that note 22 refers to my thesis. I will review the 48 pages Mr Shi has written as Chapter 13 of the following book:B...
Japan On Chinese trade marks of Japanese Locations: "Can't Touch This"
Posted on June 09, 2008The Japanese Patent Office declared it wants to stop Chinese companies registering Japanese geographical locations as trade marks."The two languages share many characters and Japan's Kyodo news agency said thenames of 19 of the country's 47 prefectures including Kyoto, Nagano and Yamaguchi had been registered as trademarks in China by the end of last year...
Born Thanks To Counterfeiters?
Posted on June 09, 2008Mr Robert Kessler of Newsday tells about counterfeit ring raids and warns that counterfeit condom of the Trojan Horse brand can be less than effective in preventing pregnancies and protect against diseases."A spokeswoman for Church and Dwight, the company that manufactures the legitimate Trojan condoms in the United States, declined to comment on whether the counterfeit Chinese condoms could fail to prevent pregnancies or the spread of sexually transmitted diseases...
Smoking, the New Olympic Sport. What About Torching Your Smoke? Demonstration Sport
Posted on June 09, 2008Smoking and sport seems like a match of heaven. At least that might be the thought process of some counterfeiters who were caught by Beijing police:"Beijing police said on Wednesday they had detained seven people for allegedly producing and selling counterfeit cigarettes, some bearing the Beijing Olympic Games emblem on the packaging...
Theatre productions in China: "Keep your ideas to yourself"
Posted on June 05, 2008I interviewed Ms Felicitas Speth von Schülzburg, director of International Performing Arts, about her experiences with intellectual property in China. She is operating in the art sector, which is, similar to the fashion industry, very vulnerable for "trendspotters"...
How to Prevent and Act Upon Intellectual Property Rights Infringements in China
Posted on June 05, 2008I just wrote an article for Duncan Bucknell Company, the Australian company I do work for, about how to protect and enforce your IPR in China. The article has the following headings:Be preparedDo your homeworkNo registration equals no rightsTo trust is nice to control is betterBe ready to enforceInstitutions that regularly inform about IPR in ChinaWebsites about IPR in ChinaConclusionRead it here.
Examination of Three-dimensional Marks by Wang Ze
Posted on May 30, 2008"The three-dimensional marks are a new class of registrable trade marks introduced in the revised Chinese Trade Mark law as of 2001. Corresponding provisions were set forth with regard to the examination of three-dimensional marks in the Trademark Examination Standards issued by the Trademark Office and Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (TRAB) in 2005...
IPR in China Seminar in Rotterdam Dragons Businessclub
Posted on May 30, 2008Last Wednesday, I spoke at the headquarters of the Rabobank in Rotterdam, the second largest municipality of the Netherlands, about intellectual property in China. The event was organised by the Dragons Businessclub, an organisation for young Chinese entrepreneurs living in the Netherlands...
Mr László Kovács: "Customs in 2008, a real test for EU-China trade relations"
Posted on May 19, 2008Mr Lászlo Kovács, European Commissioner for Taxation and Customs Union wrote an interesting article to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Customs Union. Is there something to celebrate you might ask yourself? Well at least the Commissioner is belligerent to fight counterfeit and pirated products:"The growing trend in counterfeiting in some health-threatening sectors like foodstuffs, pharmaceuticals or spare parts is worrying...
EU Internal Market Commissioner: Anti-counterfeiting and -piracy Solutions To Be Found In Public-private Cooperation
Posted on May 14, 2008On a 13 May commission-sponsored high level conference, the Internal Market Commissioner Mr Charlie McCreevy stressed that regulation is not the only answer to fight counterfeiting and piracy, but that the private sector itself is best placed to lead the battle against the fakes...
China and EU Customs Unveiled Plans to Share Information
Posted on April 17, 2008The EU and China unveiled plans for an intelligence network to share information among ports to crackdown on counterfeiting. Source WIPO Magazine (February 2008, no.1)."Despite the increased efforts of the Chinese authorities to crackdown on counterfeiting, EU Customs Commissioner Laszlo Kovacs said that China is currently the main source of counterfeit goods seized in European ports...
Professor Susan Scafidi on Li-Ning on Nike
Posted on April 14, 2008??versus ??Even if you are not a victim of fashion Counterfeit Chic is the weblog to regularly frequent. Ms Susan Scafidi, visiting professor of Fordham Law School, blogged about Li-Ning versus Nike in her own funny tongue in cheek style.Don't miss it, read here.
Olympic Torch Tanzania Brings Protests Against ... Chinese Counterfeit Products
Posted on April 14, 2008BBC News has every day the news 'In Pictures'. Today picture six of this item showed the Olympic Torch "in peaceful Tanzania relay". There were protests, however not against human rights violations in T 1b ET, but against counterfeit and substandard products from China, no less...
Netac versus PNY settled out of court
Posted on April 07, 2008Remember the Netac versus PNY case, read here? After two years of litigation, the patent infringement conflict between Shenzhen-based Netac Technology Co Ltd and Texas PNY Technologies was settled out of court. The Netac versus PNY case is seen as a milestone, because it could highlight a trend of Chinese companies suing overseas companies for the infringements of their intellectual property rights overseas...
Which Event Is 2007 China Top Ten IPR Event?
Posted on March 26, 2008China's Intellectual Property Protection in China (IPR in China) started with democracy of some kind. Although 30 nominations of the events were already given, netizens can vote untill 12 o'clock of April 8. However, then IPR in China will decide 15 final candidate events according to the results of the vote and then the experts appraisal committee will determine the Top Ten Events...
How Should China Spend Its Extra Yuan On IPR Enforcement?
Posted on March 26, 2008Mr Stan Abrams of China Hearsay has another interesting article. He is criticising yet another public awareness campaign by the Chinese Ministry of Culture (MOC).Mr Abrams writes: "Advertising, seminars and training courses arranged by MOC will have limited effect...
WorkTools: "We Won the Judgement But it Did No Good" Part II
Posted on March 21, 2008Yesterday, Mr Mike Marks, inventor and co-founder of WorkTools explained in Part I how is it possible that although they won at court in Taiwan it really did no good. In Part II below you will find a more detailed explanation by Mr Brad I Golstein, partner of WorkTools who manages their IP...
WorkTools: "We Won Judgement But it Did No Good"
Posted on March 20, 2008Yesterday I blogged about an interview on WorkTools' patent challenges in Taiwan and China, read here.I was like Mr Stan Abrams of China Hearsay, who came up with some interesting suggestions here, very interested to know the real answer. So I asked Mr Mike Marks by email who came up with some very interesting and elaborate answers and is also referring the answer to his partner Brad Golstein, who manages WorkTools' IP for more detail:1...
WorkTools Investor's Experience With Taiwanese and Chinese Patents
Posted on March 19, 2008Mr John Eastman of Black and White interviewed Mr Mike Marks, inventor and co-founder of WorkTools about patent infringements. WorkTools specializes in the development and licensing of patented mechanical products for consumers. The company invents products and enhances products brought to it by others...
China Most Designated As Country in International Trademark Applications
Posted on February 27, 2008WIPO has a press release about the number of applications using the Madrid System for the Registration of Marks.Over 2007 China ranks number 8 in international trademark applications:2003 4722004 1,0152005 1,3342006 1,3282007 1,444China's international trademark applications were 3...
One Minute Film Contest to Promote IPR in China
Posted on February 27, 2008The movie industry uses professional producers and movie stars such as Jacky Chan to promote that youngsters abide by the IPR laws, read here. Now, during the 15th Beijing Student Film Festival, the China Film Copyright Protection Association (CFCPA) and the Motion Picture of America Association (MPAA) launced a one minute film contest (in the categories of digital video, cartoons and mobile phone films) to let the group that might be most susceptible to copyright piracy to promote respect for IPR...
PCT International Applications: China Ranks Number 7, Huawei Ranks Number 4
Posted on February 27, 2008A WIPO press release stated the following statistics:Again China is part of the top 10 countries that had the most PCT (Patent Convention Treaty) international applications.2003 1,2952004 1,7062005 2,5032006 3,9522007 5,456In 2007 China's PCT International applications were 3...
China's Third Patent Amendment: Curb Your Enthousiasm
Posted on February 27, 2008China's upcoming third amendment of its patent law has moved a lot of pens, or rather vingers, to write critiques and analyses.Mr Timonthy J. Maier partner of Maier & Maier PLLC, a law firm in Alexandria Virginia (US) and blogger of Post-Grant gives a good overview of the most controversial paragraphs of the draft...
Pirated DVD Brands and Brand Awareness
Posted on February 26, 2008Dan of Mission: Don't get Shanghaied wrote 'Better than a casino', about the differences in the quality of pirated DVDs. Dan of Mission: Don't get Shanghaied can give us an insight into the mind of the consumer of pirated products."The funniest part is, there are pirated DVD brands...
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, 2008Law 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, 2008SurveyTwo 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, 2008Mr 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...
Counterfeit iPhones Smuggled Outside China; Genuine iPhone Smuggled Back Into China
Posted on February 20, 2008Stop 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, 2008Foley & 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, 2008The 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, 2008Every 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, 2008Happy 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, 2008Tavis 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, 2008According 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, 2008Thailand 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, 2008The 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, 2008In 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, 2008Happy 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, 2008Yan 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, 2008Although 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, 2007The 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, 2007Philip 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, 2007Mr 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, 2007IP 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, 2007Last 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, 2007Jeffrey 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, 2007Tsai 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, 2007Andrew 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, 2007Aaron 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, 2007Jeffrey 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, 2007According 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, 2007Mr 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, 2007It 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)...
ASK TongFang Donates RFID System to 2008 Beijing Olympic Games
Posted on November 12, 2007Tsinghua TongFang, the joint-venture of French RFID company ASK, will donate the whole RFID system to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games Organizing Committee which including the RFID inlays, gate readers, software and service. Read more here. Head tip to counterfeit...
Troutman Sanders Adds IP Attorney Sebastian Hughes in HK
Posted on November 06, 2007AsiaMedia sent me this press release:"Hong Kong, 6th November 2007 ? Global law firm Troutman Sanders LLP strengthened its intellectual property practice by adding well-known IP attorney Sebastian Hughes as a partner to its Asia team ? further evidence that the U...
Words Less Spoken about Copyright Piracy in China
Posted on October 29, 2007Much ado about copyright piracy in China. Liu Baijia wrote about China's measures against copyright infringement in the article 'Taking action against piracy' for China Daily.Many familiar arguments can be read here: about on the one hand China's great speed of implementing IP legislation, where China needed only 20 years, other countries needed 100 years; and on the other that foreign countries need to be patient, because China has just begun in this field of enforcement...
TRIPs Amendment; China's Medicine For A New Pandemic?
Posted on October 29, 2007It is good to be prepared for the worst. Zhu Zhe of the China Daily reports that last Sunday, during the 30th session of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, China's legislature accepted an amendment to the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) to enhance access to medicines when dealing with public health emergencies, such as SARS and bird flu...
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