International Law

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

Posted on October 21, 2009
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 and intellectual property matters...

Economic Espionage Case Against Suspects Allegedly Sponsored By China

Posted on October 20, 2009
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 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, 2009
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 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, 2009
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 to it very much. Read more about it here.

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

Posted on October 19, 2009
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. 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, 2009
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...

EU Afraid To Share Sensitive Proprietary Info With China

Posted on September 21, 2009
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 Survey 2009, [...

IPR Protection For Traditional Chinese Medicine Needed

Posted on September 17, 2009
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 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, 2009
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 so "original" after all...

"Class" Justice in Trademark Rights: Lan Kwai Fong

Posted on September 15, 2009
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. 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, 2009
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 ?? (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, 2009
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 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, 2009
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 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, 2009
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.

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

Posted on August 26, 2009
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, 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, 2009
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 Burberry.

60 percent of Hong Kong Young Download Films or Music Illegally

Posted on August 22, 2009
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 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, 2009
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 ...

WTO Report of the Panel DS363

Posted on August 13, 2009
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 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, 2009
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 more invention patents than foreign companies...

Cherkizovsky Market Closed Because of Counterfeit and Pirated Goods From China

Posted on July 31, 2009
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"...

News From The Front Lines

Posted on July 28, 2009
Guest 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, 2009
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 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, 2009
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'...

Obama Endorses Fake Blackberry? Yea, right...

Posted on July 16, 2009
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 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, 2009
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 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, 2009
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 emblem and flag of Hong Kong S...

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

Posted on July 10, 2009
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 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, 2009
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, the French BBC so to say, about a video by MacMedics and about iPhones, counterfeiting and what you can do about it...

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