Tag Archives: infringement

Is It Copyright Infringement to Perform “Gangnam Style” at a Corporate Annual Gala in China?

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(By You Yunting) PSY, the most popular South Korean Artist, has achieved more than 1 billion clicks, or views, on Youtube for his music video “Gangnam Style,” and has earned a global reputation. To perform Psy’s signature “horse-riding” dance has become an integral part of domestic corporate annual galas in China. In fact, the partners of our law firm have been encouraged by colleagues to perform the dance for everyone’s amusement. The problem was that none of us could actually perform the “horse-riding” dance properly. When facing such horrible demands from coworkers, a question raised by one of our associates interested me: would a performance of “Gangnam Style” infringe others’ lawful rights?

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An International Trade Dispute with Trademark Parallel Import Involved

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By Lear Gong

The author recently handled a lawsuit involving trademark parallel import. The case itself was not complicated: a famous American bedding design company (“US Company”) holds trademark A in both China and Japan. The US Company licensed a Shanghai home furnishing company (“Shanghai Company”) to manufacture and sell products marked with trademark A within the territory of mainland China. A Japanese home furnishing company (“Japanese Company”) offered to import trademark A furniture from China to Japan, but demanded a written license from US Company. With the promise from the Shanghai Company, the parties concluded a sales contract, but the clause on the Shanghai Company’s duty to get a license from US Company was not clear. From the time the contract was concluded until the products were delivered, the Japanese Company always urged the Shanghai Company to present it the certificate of license issued by the US Company, but the Shanghai Company did not reply or present the certificate. The Japanese Company moved to terminate the sales contract based on failure to perform. The Shanghai Company then filed a lawsuit against the Japanese Company demanding that it continue performance of the sales contract.

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Solutions to Labor Dispute on the Employment of Foreigners in China

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By Albert Chen

A subscriber of our website raised a question to us: what to do when countered a labor dispute for foreigners in China, who shall also be protected by local laws? To this question, you may find your answer in today’s post.

I. Are Chinese laws and regulations applying to labor disputes of foreigners?

The main existing laws regulating the employment of foreigners in China is RULES FOR THE ADMINISTRATION OF EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGNERS IN CHINA (Rules) issued by police, labor and other two departments. According to Article 26 of the Rules:

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Does BesTV Infringe CNTV for Broadcasting Olympic Games?

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By You Yunting

In recent, CNTV, the subsidiary of China national television station (the “CCTV”), which in charge of its online business, quarreled with SMG’s BesTV (SHEX:600637) on the Olympics broadcasting. By the statement of CNTV, it owns the exclusive online broadcasting right of 2012 London Olympics in China, yet BesTV, with no license form CNTV, provided 1) the streaming of Olympic games, 2) program time-shifted playback through server storage and 3) VOD to local cooperated IPTVs, and that damages CNTV’s legal rights. So far we have heard no reply from BesTV on the accusation.

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Legal Analysis on Conflict Between Domain and Name Right According to Chinese Law, I

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By Albert Chen

In recent, one of the hot news in China, might be Mr. Zhou Libo’s taking back the network domain in his name (Zhou is the comedian star of Shanghai style small talk, a talk-show like performance in Shanghai dialect). Ms. Yue from Beijing registered “zhoulibo.com” (the “domain”) in 2007, and in September of 2011, Mr. Zhou filed the arbitration in the Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre (ADNDRC), claiming that the main part of the domain is as same as the pinyin of his name which is highly possible to result in the misunderstanding among the public. The ADNDRC finally adjudicated the domain to Mr. Zhou. For the dissatisfaction with the decision, Ms. Zhou brought the dispute to Shanghai No.2 Intermediate People’s Court, but the court refused all the claims of her.

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The Successful Transformation of VeryCD: China’s Biggest Download Website Becomes a Webgame Company

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(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.

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How to Apply for the Trademark Record in China Custom

Highlight: You could get to know the effective way of combating infringing product by trademark record in China custom in today’s post.

As reported by xinhuanet.com, the first instance of the knockoff brand product case with the biggest amount involved in recent was heard. The suspect of the case purchased the knockoff LV, Adidas, LACOSTE and other brand products for export, afterwards the knockoffs were detained for the suspicious infringement basing on the recorded trademark by the customhouse after the inspection, and finally the products were appraised fake with the market value of more than 230 million yuan.

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Will Daily Deal Website Lashou Lost its domain name for trademark infringement?

Highlight: Lashou.com. a well-known daily deal website in China, says that the trademark of “拉手(Chinese pronunciation: lashou)”and“拉手团购(Chinese pronunciation: lashou tuangou)”have not be registered. For this, Bridge IPR Commentary made the retrieval and also put forward our advice.

It’s reported that Lashou.com is not approved for it’s application of the trademark “拉手”and“拉手团购”for their similarity to the registered ones, thus may bring Lashou.com the trademark conflict and the risk of losing its domain name www.lashou.com. If the reported facts do exist, the market of Lashou.com and its operating company Beijing Lashou Internet Technology Co., Ltd (hereinafter called as “Lashou Company”) may be influenced hereby, and even its IPO could be delayed.

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Analysis on the Different Infringement Liabilities of Taobao Market and Tmall


Recently, the attorneys of Bridge IPR Commentary were interviewed by “China Intellectual Property “, an IPR magazine in China, and the details are as follows:

1. Taobao Market and Tmall are both the separate channels of Taobao, and Tmall was established after Market and now have its own domain name. Then is there any difference between Taobao Market and Tmall?

Unlike the stores in the Market applied by individual merchants with a relatively low threshold, the qualification for Tmall is much stricter for only licensed corporations could run the business in it, furthermore, the service of changing or refunding, after service and invoice are also demanded. Currently, the famous brands operating in Tmall include Lenovo, Haier, Nike and other well-known brands, which are similar to brand stores guaranteeing in service quality.

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The Legal Protection over Open Source Software in China

Highlight: Although the OSS is the legal works protected by Copyright Law in China, there has promulgated few legal regulations on it. In this essay, you could know the method to protect the OSS by the current laws and regulations.

It has shown up an increasing trend to open the source code in the intellectual property practices of the world software industry, which is remarked in China by Microsoft’s decision to open part of its operating system code to China government. The protection over open source software is still a legal practices field with little specified regulations in China. However, on the other hand, most important software of China’s own intellectual property is developed on the opened source code and subject to the restriction of the OSS License. Bridge IP Commentary will introduce you the protection over the OSS under current legal environment in China and its legal status.

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Nikon Succeeds in Combating the Trademark Infringement in Non-video Classes

—Judicial Solutions to the Conflict between Company Name and Trademark Right in China 

Highlight: The free-riding on the well-known trademark is not rare in China for the startups’ eagerness of rapid development, some ones may even register such marks as their company names. Bridge IP Commentary will introduce you the key elements in the trademark  right protection for trademark owner.

Recently, China’s Supreme Court released the Annual Ten IPR Cases in China, among which a case concerning the conflict between company name and well-known trademark heard in Xi’an Intermediate People’s Court of Shaanxi Province gets the attention of Bridge IP Commentary. In the case, a company established on 28th March, 2000 in Jinghua City of Zhejiang Province altered its name to Zhejiang Nikon Co., Ltd., which mainly sells bikes and scooters and applied for trademark registration. That discontented century-old Nikon Corporation (TYO:7731) and aroused the legal battle. Zhejiang Nikon was finally sentenced to abandon the registration, alter its infringing name and take the compensation liability.

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Should Apple Bear Liability for Infringing Contents in App Store?

Highlights:Two software developers was sentenced to bear the compensation liability recently in Beijing for the infringing gadgets in Apple App Store. Bridge IP Commentary will introduce you the liabilities Apple may take in such case.

Recently, a case concerning the alleged video infringement in App Store is sentenced by a local Court in Beijing, in which the LeTV Information and Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. (the “LeTV”, SZSE: 300104) found a TV series with the right to network dissemination of information reserved by it played on a software available from the App Store and then filed a suit against the two companies developing and operating the software. The first instance’s decision supported the claim of LeTV with the sentence of the compensation of RMB 40,000.

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