（Adopted at the 29th Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Tenth National People’s Congress on August 30, 2007）
Contents
Chapter I General Provisions
Chapter II Monopoly Agreements
Chapter III Abuse of Dominant Market Position
Chapter IV Concentration of Undertakings
Chapter V Abuse of Administrative Power to Eliminate or Restrict Competition
Chapter VI Investigation into Suspected Monopolistic Conducts
Chapter VII Legal Liabilities
Chapter VIII Supplementary Provisions
The Guiding Catalogue of Foreign Investment in China (the Catalogue) revised in the last year has come into effect on 30th January, 2012. The new Catalogue contains some modified regulation on foreign investment in China, and today Bridge IP Law Commentary would like to introduce you the change in respect of internet business in the Catalogue. (the image above is the logo of myspace.cn, invested by Mr. Rupert Murdoch through VIE, which is claimed temporary shut down for technology reasons)
I. Permission of foreign investment in online music industry
(By Huang Mengren) The21st Century Business Herald has reported (note: the link is in Chinese) that eMule, one of the biggest video, music and game resource sharing websites in China, has had early success in webgaming after its abandonment of downloadable content hosting, with a current monthly income of tens of millions yuan.
VeryCD, who introduced the open source software eMule into China in 2003, is the 462nd most visited website according to Alexa as of 7th February 2012. The software eMule is a P2P web sharing software based on open source code, and its main difference from the P2P sharing software Bit Torrent is that it works without the torrent file and tracker. Therefore, the operational risk to the operator of the software is much lower in theory than that of other BT sites. The report states that VeryCD.com made modifications to the eMule software for the avoidance of political risk and also shielded KAD research service. It is also stated in the report that the total cumulative downloads from VeryCD.com’s eMule are more than 30 million times.
The most notably and widely discussed issue around this Chinese New Year, to Bridge IP Law Commentary’s opinion, is probably not the traditional spring festival variety show on CCTV, but the argument between Fang Zhouzi, a self-claimed anti-fraud cop or myth buster, and Han Han, an acclaimed writer in China. The flame battle started from a blog by Mai Tian, a better-known blogger, doubting many works of Han Han are actually written by his father or other unnamed writer while published in his name. Despite it ends in Mai Tian’s apology and admission of mistake, the issue opens the Pandora’s box of doubts on Han Han. Afterwards, Fang Zhouzi took the relay baton, who was counter-backed by Han Han and his father, and moreover Han Han showed his original manuscript for proving. After days of online words war, Han Han filed the lawsuit for the reputation infringement and claimed the compensation of 100, 000 yuan.
It is reported by SECURITIES DAILY (note: the link is in Chinese) that there will be adjustment on tax policy in China animation industry. In recent, China Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation jointly issued a new policy supporting the animation industry, which introduces the VAT and the preferential business tax. And less tax and taxation of the both VAT and business tax will be made hereby.
I. For the sales of the independently developed animation software by the company of the general tax payer itself, the VAT shall be levied at the rate of 17% first, and the exceeding 3% amount of the actual tax bearing will be refunded. That’s the so called levy-refund policy.
Analysis on the combat against web-game higention in China
Hackers in China have found their new way of fortune, as reported by Changjiang Time (note: the link is in Chinese), the police in Huangshi City of Hubei Province has recently detected a serious cyber infringement, with 16 men arrested and a higention publishing website named 3000ok shut down. By the investigation, the hacker would establish a game higention publishing website, attracting players for higention operators through ads, and once the operator refuses their ads agency, the hacker will attack the higention server.
According to the report of People.com, the patent prosecution highway between China and Germany was started on 23rd, January, 2012. According to the Joint Statement by the Chinese Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) and the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA), the piloting items of the PPH only involve the regular PPH, excluding PCT-PPH in the Sino-Japan PPH and Sino-America PPH. The initial programme will run for two years and ends on 22nd January, 2014, subject to the renewal. Thus Germany has been the third main trade partner of China after Japan and America cooperating in PPH.
Analysis on the Establishment of Well-known Trademark of Silk (秀水)
Recently, China Trademark Office, a branch of State Administration of Industry and Commerce announced the list of newly established well-known trademark of 2011, and the mark of Silk(“秀水” read as Xiu Shui or known as Silk)applied by Beijing Silk Street Market Co., Ltd (the “Silk Company”) was on it. Therefore the mark Silk gains the highest domestic trademark honor. Silk Company, the owner of the trademark stated on its official Weibo (twitter like website in China) account that “it is another milestone on the road of intellectual property autonomous development of Silk Market, and that will boost the development of brands of Silk Market based on the Silk mark.
—Introduction to the Security Measures by the Courts in China
Recently, a judge from the Shanghai No.2 Intermediate People’s Court has published an article (in Chinese) Trial Experiences in Trade secret Infringement Cases (the article), and the Bridge IP Law Commentary has already introduce how to apply for evidence preservation in trade secret infringement cases in China. Today we would like to continuously introduce another part of the Article relating the security measures taken by the people’s courts in preventing the parties concerned in the proceeding from discourse of trade secrets.
According to the report (in Chinese) of Donews, a tech website in China, Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) and ZTE (SEHK: 0763, SZSE: 000063) have signed a global cross license agreement and agree to withdraw all the lawsuits against each other, while, on the other hand, no disclosure on the patent fee paid by ZTE to Ericsson.
In April of 2011, Ericsson filed a lawsuit against ZTE in Germany, UK and Italy, claiming the infringement against its patent of GSM and 3G/UMTS wireless technology. After that, there saw a heavy fall of the stock price both in A and H market of ZTE, which was the new lowest price then. And until closing on Wednesday then (19th, January), the price of it in the A stock market was encountered a decline limit and a plunge of 7% in H stock market. According to the stock agent, that mainly resulted from the possible influence of the lawsuit initiated by Ericsson on the achievement in 2011 of ZTE.
PART ONE ： GENERAL PROVISIONS
Article 1 These General Provisions are formulated in accordance with the PRC， People’s Bank of China Law and the PRC， Commercial Banking Law and other relevant laws and regulations in order to regulate lending activities， safeguard the lawful rights and interests of lenders and borrowers， guarantee the safety of credit loan assets， enhance the overall benefit of loan usage and promote the continued development of the socialist economy.
Article 2 The term “lenders” in these General Provisions shall refer to Chinese-invested financial organizations engaged in the lending business that were lawfully established inside the People’s Republic of China.
It is reported by the Legal Daily, a new advancement of the third revision of the Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China revised in 2010 ( “ 2010 Copyright Law”) has achieved recently since the commencement of revision on 13th July, 2011. The three drafts for revisions advised by experts entrusted by the office of the leading group in charge of legislation revision have been completed.
It is said that the three drafts are separately drafted by the Intellectual Property Right Research Center of Chinese Academic and Social Science, Intellectual Property Right Research Center of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law and the School of Intellectual Property of Renmin University of China.
I. To legally determine the fault ascertainment standard of Safe Harbor Rule
Ms. Zhang suggested to drafted the standard of “known or shall be known” as the legal standard of the ISP fault ascertainment, meanwhile, the obligation of ISP shall also be listed in the modified law while no too high obligation shall be set.
Bridge IP Law Commentary’s opinion: There’s no legal standard on the ascertainment of ISP fault in Copyright Law, with the standard is referred to partly in the Article 36 of Infringement liability law, “Where no measures have been taken by IPS on knowing the infringement or violation by users against others, the ISP shall take the joint liability with the infringer.”
On 30th December, the Annual Conference of Sohu Weibo Client (weibo is just kind of microbloggng service like twitter in China), 2011 was held in Beijing, and Sohu (NASDAQ: SOHU) first issued the Weibo Copyright Protection Convention among the four main microblogging platforms in China, which verifies that the author may enjoy the copyright over its tweets, and accordingly Sohu will provide protecton on it, respect its authorized use and offer aids in the legal protection. However, for the tweets tend to be brief, therefore its protection by Copyright Law has been long argued. And here is the analysis from Bridge IP Law Commentary on it.
As to the latest news to us, aiming at the less operation burden as well as the healthy development to the small and micro business, the State Intellectual Property Center has promulgated the Notice of the Relief on the Software Copyright Registration Fee of Small and Micro Business (the “Notice”) on 27th December, 2011.
As stipulated in the Notice, during the period commencing from 1st January, 2012 to 31st December, 2014, any approved small or micro business may be temporarily exempted from the copyright registration fee, contract registration fee, information inquiry fee and other 8 administrative charging. Meanwhile, all the companies applying for the fee relief will be recorded by the administration.