Author Archives: Dr. Danny Friedmann

US-China Green Technology Transfer Strained By Circular Reasoning

Last 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 … Continue reading

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iSuppli: China’s Grey Mobile Phone Market Explodes

In 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 … Continue reading

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Sino-Korean Dispute About Dragon Boat Festival

A 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 … Continue reading

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First Issue The WIPO Journal Includes Articles About IPR in China

The 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 … Continue reading

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Professor David Llewlyn Explained All IPRs in One Hour

IP 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 … Continue reading

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“Games on iPhone Are 50-90 Percent Pirated”

Simon 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.“ … Continue reading

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Professor Llewelyn Asks Rhetorical Question About IPRs: “Too Important to Leave to the Lawyers?”

Tonight, 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 … Continue reading

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Chinese Counterfeit ICs Sold To US Navy. How To Identify Them?

With 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 … Continue reading

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ASEAN-China: IPR Cooperation and Standard MOUs

The 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 … Continue reading

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Russia to China: Kalashnikov’s Copyright Should Be Protected

Topix 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.

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Massive Chinese Copyright Trade at Frankfurt Book Fair

“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 … Continue reading

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IPR/Espionage Ping-Pong Case: Fiat Sues Great Wall, Great Wall Sues Fiat

Fiat 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 … Continue reading

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USCC 2008 Report to Congress: From Visible IPR Infringements To Undectable Cyber Espionage

The 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 … Continue reading

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China Written Works Copyright Society Objects Google Settlement

The 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. Read Elaine … Continue reading

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20th Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade Between China and US

China 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 … Continue reading

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Economic Espionage Case Against Suspects Allegedly Sponsored By China

The 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 … Continue reading

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IPR Challenges in Geely-Ford Talks About Volvo

Keith 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 … Continue reading

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Professor Peter K. Yu General Editor of WIPO Journal: Analysis and Debate of Intellectual Property Issues

There 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 … Continue reading

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Gartner Predicts 2012 Software Piracy in China Will Fall To 50 Percent

Kelvin 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. … Continue reading

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Revolutionary Lessons For China From Michael Carrier’s Book ‘Innovation for the 21st Century’

‘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 … Continue reading

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Sweet Irony: Is IP Dragon Liable For Hosting IPR Infringing AdWords?

Law is often walking a few steps behind the developments in society. I propose the term “law lag”, whereby I apply the “cultural lag” concept developed by Thorstein Veblen to law. Of course intellectual property and cyberlaw are not immune … Continue reading

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Murdoch, Procrustus and the WTO Copyright Cases

October 12, Sky Canaves of the Wall Street Journal has an article about Rupert Murdoch who is urging China to enforce copyright piracy and open up its market for copyrighted products. See here (or on page 8 of the printed … Continue reading

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Is Coffee-Mate a Generic Term for Coffee?

Stan Abrams over at China Hearsay is posing a question mark whether Coffee-Mate in Chinese is a generic term and therefore diluting the trademark of Nestlé. See the China Hearsay article which is not devoid of humour here.

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China Appeals WTO DS 363 About Market Access of Copyrighted Goods

China 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. According to the BBC, … Continue reading

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EU Afraid To Share Sensitive Proprietary Info With China

The 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 … Continue reading

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IPR Protection For Traditional Chinese Medicine Needed

On 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 … Continue reading

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Marco Polo Hiuui: Knock-off Of Knock-off = Knock-off Square

Recently 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 … Continue reading

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“Class” Justice in Trademark Rights: Lan Kwai Fong

Lan 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. … Continue reading

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Exxon Mobil Wins 500,000 RMB Because of Trademark Infringement

Parties: 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 美孚 (mei3 = good, beautiful; … Continue reading

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HK Government Wants Your Views on Copyright Tribunal Rules

click 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 … Continue reading

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Harvest of Counterfeit Louis Vuitton and Gucci in 15 Minutes at Mong Kok Station

I 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 … Continue reading

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IP Dragon Will Blog About Two Conferences in Hong Kong About IPR in China, Hong Kong and Europe

4 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, HKU School of Law, King’s College London Faculty of … Continue reading

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Polo Santa Roberta “Original” Mix of Ralph Lauren’s Polo Brand And Burberry Tartan Pattern

Spotted 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 … Continue reading

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Creemers’ Summary Of And Comments On DS363

Rogier 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.

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60 percent of Hong Kong Young Download Films or Music Illegally

Adrian 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 … Continue reading

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Tomatolei.com Copyright Infringement Case: Four Sentenced To Imprisonment

See the verdict of the Suzhou Huqiu District People’s Court’s in the copyright infringement case against tomatolei.com at the BSA site here.

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WTO Report of the Panel DS363

Intellectual 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 … Continue reading

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If You Have .hk HKIRC Will Give You .香港 For Free

James 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 .hk … Continue reading

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New Red Dawn in Patents: More Chinese than Foreign Companies Filed Chinese Invention Patents

Joff 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 … Continue reading

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Cherkizovsky Market Closed Because of Counterfeit and Pirated Goods From China

Cherkizovsky 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”. … Continue reading

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News From The Front Lines

Guest article and picture by Mikołaj Rogowski Writing 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 … Continue reading

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Good Old Days of Counterfeiting in Hong Kong?

Adrian 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 … Continue reading

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Effect of DS362 on Copyright Piracy in China Nil?

Rogier 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’. … Continue reading

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Obama Endorses Fake Blackberry? Yea, right…

Jason 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 … Continue reading

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Recession + E-commerce = Counterfeiting

Robert 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 … Continue reading

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Article 6ter Paris Convention Online: Hong Kong (2), China (0), Netherlands (37)

March 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 … Continue reading

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EU Customs Report 2008 About IPR Enforcement Activities not IPR Infringements from China

Yesterday 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 … Continue reading

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Fake iPhones: Rip-off or Innovation

iPhone 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, … Continue reading

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May You Live In Interesting Times Online: Does China’s Green Dam Includes Pirated Code?

May 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 … Continue reading

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Supreme People’s Court of China: “Current Economic Situation Makes Granting IPR Injunctions More Difficult”

December 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 … Continue reading

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