Tag Archives: copyright lawyer

Analysis on Application of Red Flag Rule in China

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By Luo Yanjie

Recently, Shanghai No.2 Intermediate People’s Court issued “Investigation Report about Infringement of Right of Information Network Dissemination in the Area” which introduces the application of “red flag” principle in China. Today we would like to share the topic with readers as follows:

I. The basic concept of “red flag” principle

“Red flag” principle is an exception of “safe harbor” principle. It means if the fact of infringement obviously like a “red flag” flying, network service providers cannot pretend not to see, or to shirk responsibility as not knowing. In this premise, even if the right people have issued a notice, the court should also identify the Internet service provider is aware of third party’s infringement and shall bear tort liability.

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Fair Use for Getty’s Picture of Statute?

By Luo Yanjie

    Getty Images (NYSE: GTY) (the “company”or “Getty”) is a company globally known for its picture license business for third party’s use. In general, the company shall appear in the court as the plaintiff, yet as reported in recent (note: the link is in Chinese), Getty was charged in Beijing Haidian People’s Court. The story is: Getty was found by a Chinese statute designer of unlicensed collection of his works into the company’s data base, which was on sale to the public; therefore, he filed a lawsuit against Getty, demanding a compensation. After the hearing, Getty was judged non-fair use in the case, and shall compensate the plaintiff RMB 5, 000 and an apology.

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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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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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Which Part of Medical Instruction Could be Protected by China Copyright Law?

By Luo Yanjie

In recent, the Supreme People’s Court of China asked for public opinions on “judicial protection on the medical instruction’s copyright and the definition of its legal boundary”. The lawyers of our website are confronted with the same problems in practices: shall the instruction be protected by the copyright law? So, in today’s post, we would like to share our opinions on the copyright protection of the insert with the reference to our past cases and experiences.

I. Could the instruction be the works on law?

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Is the Second-paid Right of Audio-visual works in Draft Copyright Law Feasible?

On the 6th of July, the State Copyright Bureau published the second copyright law revision draft (hereinafter referred to as “the second draft”), which removed the “phonograms compulsory license” clause and the collective management organization’s “extended management” clause those are controversial in the first draft. The removal is welcomed by right people. In spite of this a new rule in the second draft caused controversy by the Movie Company and investors which is so-called “second paid right” of right people and related individuals. Industry insiders point out, the rule of “second paid right” will lead to the circulation payment which will increase the cost indefinitely. It will cause a negative effect to movie industry’s development. Today, we would like to introduce the rule of “second paid right” and share ideas as follows:

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No Infringement of SONY TV’s Unauthorized Cartoon Playing

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By Luo Yanjie

In our past post “How Sony Can Avoid Copyright Risk”, we gave our legal opinion in the copyright infringement charged against SONY. And in that case, SONY integrated the function of networking in a type of its TV products, by which the consumer could watch the cartoon produced by an animation company after registering its TV and the application for an account on an appointed websites under the instruction of SONY. The animation company sued SONY and the website in Beijing after detaining the infringement.

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Traditional Internet VS Mobile Internet: Any Difference in Law Application?

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By Luo Yanjie

With the popularity of the smart phones in the modern society, we have seen an explosion development of the mobile internet. And by some statistics, the data traffic of the mobile terminal has occupied 10% of the total on the internet, which has been taken as the most important growth point of technology in the coming several years. Meanwhile, the explosion also adds fuel to the firing copyright piracy on the internet, and the convenience of the network also troubles the copyright owner in the right protection. And moreover, it also puzzles the copyright the law application in the mobile internet. Therefore, in today’s post, we would like to share our opinions and experiences on the issue:

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How to Apply for Evidence Preservation for IPR Trials in China

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By Luo Yanjie

In an earlier Microsoft’s case of right protection (Note: the link is in Chinese), the company applied for the evidence preservation to the court after they found the piracy using by others, demanding the perpetuation covering the pirated Microsoft software installed in the computers in the defendant’s business place. The application was accepted by the court, who thereafter sealed and checked the computers claimed and found each apparatus has been installed at least 5 types of software of Microsoft. Whereby, Microsoft gains the compensation of more than 1 million yuan in the following trials.

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SIMENS Benefits: A Breakthrough of the Legal Compensation Limit on Pirate Software Litigation

As reported (note: the link is in Chinese), SIMENS PLC Software won the copyright dispute over its software against Excelstor Technology (Excelsor), a company headquartered in Shenzhen, in Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court, with a sentence to stop the infringement and compensation of 1.16 million yuan for the infringement. There are two eye catching points in this case: 1) the court aided SIMENS in evidence preservation to detain the computers of Excelsor’ s design department, which are detected of NX Unigraphics copyrighted by SIMENS, and that is rare in the cases of this kind; 2) the judged compensation surpassed the legal limit. The post today mainly focuses on the 2nd point. (the image today is the logo of SIMENS)

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Beijing Files Most IPR Lawsuits in China

As reported by Mr. Chi Qiang, the chief justice of Beijing Higher People’s Court,on the 5th Session of the 13th People’s Congress of Beijing, there have judged 12, 269 IPR cases in Beijing courts of each level, which is a year by year increase of 16.3% and occupies 22.3% of all around China. For these cases, both total amount and new type case are rank first in all the courts nationwide.

Other recommended posts on our website:
1. The Actual Term of Trademark Registration in China
2. How to Apply for the Trademark Record in China Custom
3. How to improve the success rate of trademark registration in China?
4. Matters for Attention in Trademark Refusal Review in China
5. Introduction of China’s Legal System of Trademark Renewal
6. Introduction on the Regulations concerning the Capital Contribution in IPR or Domain Name in China
7. The Copyright Registration in China Could Be FREE?
8. China Copyright Protection Term Longer than EU’s?
9. Matters for Attention in the Patent Preliminary Injunction Application in China(I)

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Baidu Reached a Final Settlement with Three Main Music Companies

According to the report of Beijing News, the Supreme Court of China revealed recently that Baidu, the defendant in the lawsuit against Universal, Warner and Sony BMG, has reconciled with its opponent.

Universal, Warner and Sony BMG sued Baidu in 2008, claiming Baidu has infringed the companies’ record producer right by links, online audition and download service through search box and ranking list in its MP3 column. But the claim was rejected by the No. Intermediate People’s Court in Beijing in the first instance, and Baidu is judged of no infringement as an cyber search operator.

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Legal Commentary on the case of Founder VS P&G and Chinese Character, II

—Analysis on the law Nature of the Works of Word Stock

Today’s essay follows “Legal Commentary on the case of Founder VS P&G and Chinese Character, I”

(2) The Founder Word Stock is the composite works

The Stock here refers to the Founder Word Stock composing all the individual words in it rather than the stock software. The new works come from the selection or arrangement of the existing works is called the composite works. In our opinion, it’s necessary for Founder to apply the copyright registration for the whole Stock since only focusing on the determination of the copyrighted works over the Stock Software or the individual words is not enough. And such registration could benefit the protection over the Stock against any other infringement, such as to print a book or magazine in the script in the Stock with no license.

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Legal Commentary on the copyright infringement case of Founder Electronics VS P&G, I

—Analysis on the law Nature of the Works of Chinese Character Word Stock

Highlight: Today and tomorrow, Bridge IP Law Commentary will introduce and analyze you the case of script copyright conflict between Founder and P&G, and also the system of word stock works behind the case. And the following is the first half—the introduction on the case and the part analysis on the nature of the works of word stock.

On the morning of 5th July, 2011, the appeal of the Founder Electronics (HKEX:0418, 0618) was rejected by the No.1 Intermediate People’s Court of Beijing in its case of the script copyright conflict against P&G (NYSE: PG), and the decision of the first hearing was supported. The final judgment maintains an ambiguous attitude towards the determination of “飘柔”, the localized name of the Rejoice brand of P&G , to be a fine art works, neither to support it or opposite it.

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