New record in copyright registrations
Feb-27-2017 By : fcccadmin
China has set a new record for copyrights, processing more than 2 million new registrations last year, a rise of 22.3% compared with 2015, the National Copyright Administration of China said. Nearly 1.6 million registrations were publications, including literary works and photographs, while 407,774 were software, according to the Administration. The number of software copyright registrations has increased about 40% compared with 2015. More than 80% of the software works were registered in 10 cities in Guangdong province, along with Beijing and Shanghai. China’s copyright registrations have seen a steady, rapid rise. The number has increased about four-fold since 2011, when the number was 570,000. In 2013, China’s copyright registrations hit what was then a record 1 million. “The increase shows the rise of people’s copyright protection awareness,” said Du Ying, Professor of intellectual property rights at the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing, the China Daily reports.
IP judicial innovation forges ahead
Feb-20-2017 By : fcccadmin
A growing number of lawsuits, as well as a reformed judicial system and enhanced protections, are some of the leading features of China’s current intellectual property business, said officials, scholars and company executives at a recent forum in Beijing. Fan Liming, Vice President of Shanghai-based IP service provider Sinofaith, said IP judicial innovation in China has seen some “exciting signals” in recent years, such as the establishment of three dedicated IP courts and the promotion of a mechanism in which criminal, civil and administrative IP cases are heard at a unified division in court. IP rights infringement is also being punished more, he added. A guideline issued by the Supreme People’s Court in November 2016 called for increased compensation from rights violators as a means of enhancing protection. In a patent ruling made by the Beijing Intellectual Property Court in December, a defendant was ordered to pay a total of CNY50 million in damages to the patent right owner, the highest damages amount in the history of the court. The compensation included CNY1 million in litigation costs, and it was the first time that a Chinese IP court had ruled on hourly attorney fees in a judgment. The Beijing IP court received 10,638 lawsuits in 2016, an increase of 11.7% from a year before, and it adjudicated on more than 8,000 cases, a rise of 49.3%.
Convictions in fake branded chocolate case
Feb-13-2017 By : fcccadmin
Eight people have been sentenced to between one and five years in prison and face a total of CNY6.21 million in penalties for producing and selling fake branded chocolate. The Xinwu District People’s Court in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, handed down the ruling in mid-January, having heard the trademark case three times. The court’s decision reflects equal protection for trademark owners, Jiang Shaowen, Vice President of the court, told Chinese media. “Trademark protection shows respect for a company’s branding efforts and helps to maintain a fair environment for market competition,” Jiang said. Soon after Valentine’s Day in 2015, a shop owner in Changzhou received many complaints from his customers that Dove-branded chocolate they had bought from his shop tasted strange, but his supplier told him the chocolate was authentic. After the shop owner sent some samples to Dove chocolate manufacturer Mars China, test results showed they were all fake. Mars reported the case to the police in Wuxi in March 2015. From January to February 2016, the police discovered three illegal production and sales sites in Anhui and Jiangsu provinces and seized more than 300,000 fake Dove and Ferrero chocolates, as well as stockpiles of counterfeit trademarks, which amounted to millions of yuan in potential sales, the China Daily reports.
Alibaba joins top brands to fight counterfeiting
Jan-23-2017 By : fcccadmin
Alibaba has teamed up with some of the world’s most counterfeited global brands, including Louis Vuitton, Samsung and Swarovski, to fight against copycats. The collaboration will see Alibaba provide its members with big data and other support that will help them block, identify and even take down listings from its market places such as Tmall and Taobao, that fail to meet certain criteria. Those two sites boast one billion product listings at any given time. In return, the brands have committed to share their anti-counterfeiting data with Alibaba. The move follows a lawsuit filed by Alibaba recently against two vendors selling knock-off Swarovski watches operating from Taobao, claiming CNY1.4 million in losses. “The most powerful weapon against counterfeiting today is data and analytics, and the only way we can win this war is to unite,” said Jessie Zheng, Alibaba’s Chief Platform Governance Officer. “Alibaba welcomes brands and other organizations to join us in what we believe is the world’s first ‘Big Data Anti-Counterfeiting Alliance’.” In December, the U.S. government returned Taobao to its blacklist of “notorious markets” for hosting fake items, four years after Alibaba lobbied American trade officials to drop it from the list. Alibaba said it was “disappointed” by the decision, noting that it had “proactively removed more than double the number of infringing product listings than in 2015,” the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba, reports.
U.S. ITC investigates LCD patent infringement
Jan-16-2017 By : fcccadmin
The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has initiated a patent investigation of certain liquid crystal displays from five Chinese companies. The investigation is based on a complaint filed by Ohio-based Kent Displays, which alleged that the Chinese companies had infringed upon its patents and violated section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930. The company requested the ITC to issue a limited exclusion order, and cease and desist orders against those products. The five Chinese firms being probed are all based in Shenzhen, Guangdong province: Shenzhen Howshow Technology, Shenzhen Howshare Technology, Howshare of Shenzhen, Shenzhen Sunstone Technology, and iQbe of Shenzhen. The investigation does not mean the panel has made any decision on the merits of the case. Within 45 days, the panel will set a target date for completing the probe. If the complaint is approved, the panel will issue an import ban on infringing products and bar the sale of products within the United States.
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