What is the Best Solution to Trademark Protection in China

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By Luo Yanjie

Trademark infringement, trademark right protection, trademark application, trademark agency, trademark lawsuit, trademark administrative complaint, trademark custom record, trademark infringing products seal, trademark lawyer, trademark complaint, trademark administrative punishment, trademark infringement claim, trademark lawsuit compensation, trademark law, crime of trademark infringement, crime of trademark counterfeit, crime of sales of fake trademarked products, crime of illegal manufacture & sales of illegally manufactured trademark,

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Does Kingdoms Kill Game Infringes Olympic Champions’s Name Right?

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By Albert Chen

To use famous person’s name as the game character could be deemed infringement? In recent, we found a case quarrelling in that dispute in China.

The popular online game Kingdoms Kill introduced Sun Yang and Ye Shiwen, the gold medal swimmer of China, as its game character with the upsurge of the recent closed international games. As stated by Bianfeng Company, the operator of the game, such virtualized figures would be withdrawn after August. Yet, on the other side, Ye’s father claimed they have make no license to Bianfeng on that game development. After reading the news, a question came up with me: is that infringing the rights of Sun and Ye? The following is my analysis:

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A Way for Companies to Agree on Copyright Belonging with Employees in China

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By Luo Yanjie

In real life, a large number of outstanding copyright works are created during people’s work. Outstanding works will undoubtedly bring great benefits to right people which lead to disputes. For example, Hu Jinqing and Wu Yun, The father of Calabash Brothers, sued Shanghai animation film studio years ago, who were asked to confirm whether the copyright of characters in “Calabash Brothers” belonged to them, which the studio said the art character’s copyright belongs to the studio (note: the link is in Chinese).

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Is It Illegal for 360buy Blocking Etao’s Price Comparisonand Plugin?

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Today we are going to discuss legal problems concerning the 360buy blocking Etao.com, Alibaba’s price comparison website,’ and its plug-ins. And it shall be first pointed out, the author has no relation with either party of the event. The introduction to the event background:

In November of 2011, 360buy took technical measures to block the price search engine of Etao, who afterwards replied it would no longer index the price data of 360buy by Weibo. Yet in the price war between 360buy and Suning, Etao again published the live price comparison between 360buy and other online shopping stores. And in recent, 360buy further blocked the browser plug-in of Etao on 360buy.com, and the plug-in is designed to show the prices on different websites of the same product. Etao stated 360buy is paralyzing its software.

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Why It Is Not Easy to Combat QVOD Copyright Infringement?

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By Luo Yanjie

Most right holders of video in China are unsatisfied with a company named QVOD (the “QVOD Company”). Because anyone can use the QVOD Company’s web establishment scheme and the QVOD (the software of QVOD Company) to build a web to stream videos for users, and it has resulted in the wide spread of pirated works, while the right owners could not find the owner of websites in their right protections. Then, by view of law, is the QVOD infringing others’ rights? And what liabilities shall it take accordingly? The following is our analysis on it:

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Trademark Infringement Liability of Real Estate Lessors in China Law

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 By Luo Yanjie

In a recent news report (note: the link is in Chinese), Guang Dong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications Co., Ltd, the holder of trademark OPPO used in mobile phones, filed a lawsuit against a company and the lessor of its store, claiming ceasing the infringement and the compensation. Beijing Fengtai District People’s Court judged the joint liability of infringement of the both the shop and the real estate lessor and shall compensate the plaintiff 10, 000 yuan.

This is a typical trademark dispute arisen by the shop’s infringement and then lead to the liability of the market which is the real estate lessor, and in the similar cases, the market tends to feel being wronged for what it provides is the real estate renting not the conducts or aids in the infringement, yet the court will judge the establishment of the infringement liability. Today, we would like to analyze the liability taking in the similar cases.

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Could Bolt’s Portrait be Used in Trademark?

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By Albert Chen

The fastest man Usain Bolt continued his legend in London Olympics by claiming 3 gold medals, accompany with his record, Bolt’s celebration gesture also impresses the spectators. But in recent, a company from China’s Liaoning Province (the “Liaoning Company”) applied sprinter’s celebration gesture as his trademark.

The trademark applied by Liaoning Company is the combination of a black sportsman in yellow jersey and Bolt’s iconic victory gesture on the left half, and the Chinese character of “Real Hero” on the right side (the “Real Hero trademark”). There are three classes have been applied this time, among which the application in Class 43 has been rejected for others’ first registration, the application in Class 25 was approved and that in Class 28 is facing the opposition from Bolt’s team.

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Analysis on Search Promotion’s Infringement Liability against Trademark and Fair Competition

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By Luo Yanjie

In recent, 360buy.com, also called Jingdong Market, which is a famous online retailer in China, lost its lawsuit in an unfair competition dispute. In the case, another company called Jingdong Rubber registered the domain name of jingdong.cn, who recently found 360buy.com (Jingdong Market) will be on top of the search result of www.jingdong.cn, and right to the results is the link of “brand propaganda”. Then Jingdong Rubber filed a lawsuit against 360buy.com and Baidu (NASDAQ: BAIDU), accusing the defendants of unfair competition. After the hearing of the 1st instance, 360buy.com was deemed liable for unfair competition, yet meanwhile, Baidu was decided free of liability.

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How China Laws Provide on Song Covering in Talent Shows

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By You Yunting

A question raised up for me on Weibo stating: should all the singing performances by the participants in talent shows be licensed by the copyright holder? And who shall take the infringement liability once it is accused by the right holder? Behind the question, the most heated news related to the topic is that Universal sent a lawyer’s letter to Li Daimo, the participant of The Voice of China, accusing his unlicensed performance of “You Exist in My Song”, the works of Universal’s singer. Also in the letter, the company demands the ceasing of the performance of the song, by both the participant and The Voice. The seemingly short question actually has many legal issues in it, and the following is my answer to them.

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App Store: Duty Free for Safe Harbor Principle in China?

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By You Yunting

In March of 2012, 22 Chinese authors filed a lawsuit against Apple in Beijing No.2 Intermediate People’s Court and claimed  compensation of more than ten million. In the case, the plaintiffs stated that their works have been adapted into apps used on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, free of being charged at App Store. The case is the first lawsuit with the operator of App Store being the defendants, and will produce a prominent influence on the newly developed online store, which was launched in 2008 and with more than 360 million users . Now the litigation is under the spotlight, and this essay is focusing on the legal status of Apple and the defects in the process complaints of the store.

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Copyright Issues behind Disputes on Beijing Love Story

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By Albert Chen

The popular TV drama Beijing Love Story (the “Story”) has become the hot topic of  social discussion. The discussion was triggered about with whom the copyright  ownership of the story resides, on which both editors Chen Sicheng and Li Yaling claimed the right over it.  Chen planned to shoot a film of the Story which Li was against, with the reason that any licenses of the works shall have to go through her approval and that she will have to be paid  remuneration. With the  escalation of the dispute, both parties seek the settlement through legal ways.

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Damages from Over Promotion by E-retailers

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Recently, a sale’s promotion campaign (note: the link is in Chinese) is launched by China e-commerce merchants on Weibo, a twitter like website. On 14th August, Mr. Liu Qiangdong, CEO of 360buy.com made a statement on Weibo that all the major home appliances sold on his website will maintain ZERO gross profit in the coming 3 years, and will also be 10%  cheaper than those sold by Sunning and Gome, who are also the major E-retailers in China. Facing the challenge, Sunning (SZSE: 002024) and Gome (SEHK: 493) replied that all their commodities will be cheaper than 360buy.com. After that, both sides announced they will adjust the prices in time to ensure its own prices are lower than the opponent. The quarrel on Weibo triggered a promotion battle between the e-retailers, and after the 1st day of fighting, 360buy.com said the total sales of the day had been over RMB 200 million.

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What Legal Risks for Cloud Storage Providers in China?

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By Luo Yanjie

Recently, the 115 net disk (the “115.com”,Alexa Rank No.519), a famous cloud storage service provider (the “provider”) in mainland China shut down the sharing function of its product, and that has drawn the attention from the public media. With the shut down, the external network user could no longer download the resources from 115.com links, but 115.com replied that such a measure is to prevent the copyright risk and an action shall be taken sooner or later. Other main cloud storage providers in China like Dbank of Huawei, Kuaipan of Kingsoft (HKEX: 3888), the Vdisk of Sina (NASDAQ: SINA) still provide the content sharing service, and so far we have got no news whether they will follow 115.com in the future. Then what risks may online disk providers face for copyright infringement? The following are our opinions on it.

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Why the Cybercafé could be Exempted from the Liability of Pirate Video Broadcast?

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By You Yunting

In the past few days, a Beijing court published a case (note: the link is in Chinese) involving a cybercafé who has purchased the Video-on-demand (VOD) system, and that made the court refuse the claims of the plaintiff though the right holder proved the piracy in the VOD.

VV8.com Company, a professional video system provider to cybercafé invested by IDG and Disney, detected the pirated TV drama against its copyright in the video system of a cybercafé. And then, the right holder filed a lawsuit against the piracy. The cybercafé afterwards argued that the system was purchased by it from Hero Inc. Company, who is a third party video provider, and in that transaction, both parties has agreed that all the copyright dispute shall be handled by Hero Inc.. Moreover, all the contents in the system are updated and ciphered by Hero Inc. with remote control, thus the cybercafé could not delete any videos in it. In the lawsuits, VV8.com expressed no intention to add Hero Inc. as the co-defendant and make no claim thereby.

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