Author Archives: Dr. Danny Friedmann

J. Benjamin Bai and Kam W. Law (both lawyers at Jones Day wrote an interesting article about customs protection.China promulgated its customs protection regulations in 1995.December 2003, the regulations were revised to increase the power of the customs to investigate … Continue reading →

Dutch chemial DSM-daughter Dyneema starts a patent case against Chinese Hangzhou Pivot. According to DSM Hangzhou Pivot is infringing its Dyneema-fibre patent, used for armouring cockpit doors. DSM asks the Paris Court to order an injunction of the sale of … Continue reading →

Tod Datz wrote, a great article called ‘Faked in China’ for the Chief Security Officer Online. The article starts with the lost of innocence of Will-Burt Co. , a producer of night-scan telescoping masts. After a honeymoon week Shenzhen Superway, … Continue reading →

Invest Korea, Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency’s foreign direct investment promotion arm, compared South Korea to China in seven areas for business conditions and six for living conditions. On the frontpage of Invest Korea (no permanent link) IP Dragon found:“The intellectual … Continue reading →

The Taiwanese Mainland Affairs Council published an assessement of the social and economic risks (including legal risks as counterfeiting). Read here.

Rouse IPEX issue No. 268 reported on a landmark litigation implying registrability of a colour-combination trade mark. We can now read in Rouse IPEX issue No. 270 that the Beijing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court has given its decision: “That, although … Continue reading →

If they can control it there, they can control it anywhere, it’s up to you, China. US assistent secretary of commerce for market access and compliance David S. Bohigian, said that the United States will closely watch measures by the … Continue reading →

I’ll be backIP Dragon is stretching the meaning of TGIF a bit and goes on holiday.I’ll be back January 16th with lots of inspiration, I hope. previous TGIF next

IBC is organising the IPR in China Conference, Monday 20th March 2006 in Café Royal, London. It is especially relevant for companies suffering from infringement or considering setting up operations in China. If you look at the panelists of the … Continue reading →

During the fifth Trilateral Policy Dialogue Meeting between the Commissioners of SIPO, Japan Patent Office (JPO) and the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) that was held in Taej, South Korea on December 1st, 2005, Chinese commissioner Tian Lipu introduced some … Continue reading →

Columnist Philip Lin of Pacific Epoch is somewhat optimistic about brand protection in China now that the fakes are more concealed at Silk Street (Xiushui) mall after the Beijing operator and vendors got convicted and were ordered to pay 13.000 … Continue reading →

Randolph Hobson Guthrie III pleaded guilty of criminal copyright and trademark infringement, illegally importing infringing goods and money laundering before U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr (Southern District of Mississippi), after being deported from China to the US. Gurthrie faces … Continue reading →

The renowned business magazine gave some IP related advice, although very short. The black box method was mentioned to prevent possible infringements: to produce component parts in multiple locations around the country and then assembling them in a single, low-tech … Continue reading →

Duncan Freeman wrote an article for the Asian Times about some indicative statistics of the European Commission on Chinese pirated goods seized in China. The numbers are from 2004, because although the article was published this week, Freeman wrote it … Continue reading →

Paul Tan from Malysia raves and rants on the automobile industry: 1. Laibao SR-V vs. Honda CR-V2. Geely Merie vs. old C-class and E-class Mercedes Benz3. Chery QQ vs. Chevy Spark4. GreatWall Motors vs. Toyota Hilux5. Sing SUV vs. Nissan … Continue reading →

William Heinze of IP/Updates wrote about the value of defensive patent filings here. As a case in point he used the Fiber Optic Designs drama. Now Heinze blogged about law professor (University of California, Berkeley) Rob Merges’ essay A Transactional … Continue reading →

“At present, the annual copyright trade volume of the United States is more than 500 billion US dollars, and the figure in China is only 100 billion yuan (around 12 billion US dollars).“ Read more here.

1. TOEFL exam paper copyrightBeijing-based New Oriental Education Group infringed copyrights of the exam papers for the TOEFL-tests (Test of English as a Foreign Language) developed by the US-based Educational Testing Service. New Oriental was ordered to pay 10 million … Continue reading →

Liu Li of the ChinaDaily wrote that the IPR Tribunal of the Beijing High People’s Court ruled that Beijing Wangshi Baili Commercial Company, a department store to pay 50,000 yuan (US$6,200) to luxury accessories producer Alfred Dunhill because of a … Continue reading →

Starbucks Corp. comes out victorious in the trademark related law suit against Shanghai Xingbake Cafe that started December 2004 and ended on the last day of 2005. Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court ruled that Xingbake has conducted illegal competition … Continue reading →

Super girls, American Idol knockoff with Chinese characteristics? Baidu, China’s most popular search engine, has made a list of the hottest words of 2005. And they more or less have to do with intellectual property. 1. MP3; Baidu had to … Continue reading →

Artists from all over the world saw their copyrighted works infringed by Beijing based arch-world.cn. This company captured without permission digital copies of copyrighted paintings of more than 2,800 artists in order to duplicate the works on demand.Thanks to an … Continue reading →

With a shrinking home market Hollywood is looking at foreign markets such as China to produce and sell their movies. China has great potential, but there are some problems too. Film producers that want to show their movie in China … Continue reading →

“While multinationals are reluctant to publicly discuss the proposed law, in private many executives say previous drafts left too much leeway for taking away intellectual property set tests for mergers and acquisitions that were too stringent.”Read more here.

Applications 2004 110,000 patent applications. 588,000 trademark applications Applications 2005130,000 invention patents applications (50 % from multinationals headquartered in developed countries; patent applications from American enterprises will exceed 20,000) Patent applications of companies from developed countries93 % in electronic transmission91 … Continue reading →

SIPO is preparing the third round of revisions of the Patent Law of the PRC. The revisions might include improvement of the current examination mechanism for utility model and design patent applications. SIPO also advised local governments to channel more … Continue reading →

“Maturity and intellectual property (IP) negotiations are considered key factors in China’s 3G development. Most profits in China’s telecom market flow into the overseas giants due to China’s lack of patents in the current technology, which is considered the crucial … Continue reading →

Holthuis International Lawyers (HIL) obtained approval from the Chinese Ministry of Justice to open an office in Shanghai. The firm is the only one in the Netherlands that has been awarded such approval. However, HIL will continue its cooperation with … Continue reading →

ChinaDaily recently published the article titled: ‘The IPR Year’. This article gives an overview of some of the (alleged) IP infringement cases in China: Intel vs. Shenzhen DongjinHisense Group vs. Bosch-SiemensWuxi Multimedia vs 3C Group (Sony, Philips, Pioneer)Unilin Beheer B.V. … Continue reading →

A channel run by a state-owned coal company in the city of Chifeng (Inner-Mongolia) with an audience of 30,000 viewers sliced Chen Kaige’s new movie The Promise into a 16 episode series, selling each episode for 2 yuan (0,25 dollar) … Continue reading →

China’s 58o million dollar online games market is changing its business model, because of rampant intellectual property infringement. Instead of collecting a monthly subscribtion fee for massive multi-player games, they are going to focus on selling in-game items. “DFC Intelligence’s … Continue reading →

The NASDAQ-listed Tramford Internationa Inc. is a Hong Kong based technology company with their main portfolio business based in the People’s Republic of China. Future Solution’ s Development Inc. , the newly acquired subsidiary of the Tramford has developed the … Continue reading →

If you think about China and cars it is easy to see doom scenario’s. If every Chinese wants a car that surely would result in environmental disaster. But according to the Xinhua article, China’s car producers have realised that they … Continue reading →

Colquba versus Colgate Joel Martinsen of Danwei (means ‘unit’ in Mandarin) wrote a funny piece about Colquba, a knockoff of Colgate. Of course not funny at all for Colgate. And besides there can be serious health problems too. “The “have … Continue reading →

Burns & Levinson will merge with Perkins to boost its intellectual property practise.“The new firm plans to open a part-time office in Shanghai early next year to bolster its work in China” Read more here.

On December 20th, Beijing No. 2 Intermediate Court ruled that Silk Alley Haosen Co., the management firm of the (in)famous shopping mall of Beijing for knockoff products, had not acted in time to stop the sales of bogus merchandise by … Continue reading →

Patent lawyer Lawrence Ebert of IPBiz blogged about Fiber Optic Designs’ IP adventure in China. “To show prior invention, Fiber Optics submitted a copy of the Trenton Times from December 2001. The copy had to be notarized by a notary … Continue reading →

See article here. China recognised the ‘recognition of foreign well-known marks’ since 2004 (See article 6bis of the Paris Convention). Finally, China has been a signatory of the Paris Convention and this treaty went into force in China already on … Continue reading →

Besides the law, there is technology to fight against counterfeiting. Radio Frequency Identification tags are brought into action to prevent false tickets at the Tennis Master Cup in Shanghai. However, necessity being the mother of invention, a new problem was … Continue reading →

After a public hearing the National Copyright Administration (NCA) of China and the Ministry of Information Industry announced in May 2005 that the Administrative Measures on Internet Copyright Protection will be implemented. This means in short that ISP’s have a … Continue reading →

March 29th–30 2006, Creative Commons China will be launched. The Creative Commons license system is being adapted (‘ported’ in CC-speak) to the Chinese jurisdiction. See here (in English translation) how they are doing that. More links about Creative Commons China … Continue reading →

ChinaDaily journalist Liu Li wrote an article about Liu Xiang, China’s famous Olympic 110-metre hurdles champion. The Beijing No 1 Intermediate People’s Court overruled an earlier verdict by the Beijing Haidian District People’s Court and ordered Life Style, the magazine … Continue reading →

On Chinese Patchwriting (TGIF) Chris Shei (University of Wales Swansea) wrote an interesting paper about plagiarism and the view of patchwriting by Chinese students studying in a UK higher education institution. Chinese culture emphasises a substantial period of imitating before … Continue reading →

Countries such as China, India and Brazil, want the WTO to set up a system to control how corporations, scientists and others in the developed world use of a nation’s native plants, animals and centuries-old knowledge to make pharmaceuticals, the … Continue reading →

On 28 November 2005, Coca-Cola brought an action in the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court, asking the Court to overrule TRAB’s decision. The main feature of the Fanta bottle is the design of densely-distributed prism stripes surrounding the lower … Continue reading →

Danish company Aktieselskabet AF sued eBay Shanghai because it operated the servers of sites where products were offered that allegedly infringed trade marks of the plaintiff. Beijing no. 2 Intermediate People’s court accepted jurisdiction, but defendant eBay challenged this on … Continue reading →

The government of the capital of Guangdong province (Canton) Guangzhou, plans to launch a copyright protection system in karaoke parlors, according to the Guangzhou Daily. “The system will track which songs are played in karaoke parlors and will automatically update … Continue reading →

RegeneRx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. has received notification that the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China (SIPO) has allowed its first patent application for the Company’s Thymosin beta 4 (TB4), wound healing technology platform. RegeneRx president and CEO … Continue reading →

December 11th, the USTR published a report about China’s WTO compliance, including China’s adherence to TRIPS. Pages 63 to 73 of the report cover IPR protection: “Overal, China’s efforts to bring its framework of laws, regulations and implementing rules into … Continue reading →