Tag Archives: unfair competition

Will the Wang Lao Ji Brand Holder’s Litigation Injunction Application Against Jia Duo Bao Be Approved?

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(By Albert Chen) The hearing in the false advertising dispute between Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holding Company (“GPHC”) (SSE: 600332) and Jia Duo Bao (“JDB”) was held in January of 2013 in the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court. In addition to the arguments over false advertising, the application for a litigation injunction has been hotly debated. Today, we would like to introduce you to the injunction, which is called “preliminary execution” in China’s Civil Procedure Law.

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Comparison of Administrative and Judicial Methods of Domain Name Dispute Settlement in China

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(By Albert Chen) Currently, the main dispute resolution channels for domain name disputes include semi-administrative settlement and judicial settlement. In terms of regulation, the Measures for Settlement of Domain Name Disputes (the “Measures”) were promulgated as early as 2002 and then amended in 2006. The Measures are the primary basis for semi-administrative settlement of domain name dispute. As to judicial methods, the main basis is the Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning Application of Law in the Hearing of Computer Network Civil Disputes” (the “Interpretation”) promulgated by the Supreme People’s Court.

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What Receives Protection as a Trade Secret in China?

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By Albert Chen

In an essay posted several days ago, we discussed how infringing another’s trade secret is a kind of unfair competition. Although the Anti Unfair Competition Law contains a definition of trade secret in principle, this definition is not very detailed, and there might still be a fair number of differences between understanding and actual practice. Today’s essay will share the author’s research and analysis on whether Chinese law contains any further regulations on the term “trade secret.”

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The Judicial Jurisdiction of Network Infringement in China

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By Albert Chen

In the post Could Apple Use Objection to Jurisdiction to Prolong the Litigation Period?, we introduced the objection to jurisdiction Apple submitted to the Beijing Second Intermediate Court after it was sued by the China Writers Alliance over downloads in Apple’s App Store. In China, the infringement or tort cases shall be brought to the court of infringement place or the domicile of the defendant, and the infringement place may include the place where the infringement takes place or the place where the consequences of the infringement are felt. With regard to network infringement, could the place where the consequence of infringement is felt include any computer terminal? Today, we will introduce the relevant system.

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Analysis on Legal Risk of Out-of-Account Kickback by Foreign Invested Companies in China

By Luo Yanjie

As the mid-autumn festival is drawing on, the producers and sellers of moon cakes in cities throughout China (note: the link is in Chinese) are keen in the promotion of the snack. And by the investigation of some reporters, some merchants even try to get a big order for the moon cake by risking the kickback, and by one case, the reporter pretended to order 200 boxes of moon cakes in the name of a company, the kickback offered to him is 6% of each 10 thousand purchase, that means a total feedback of RMB 2, 400 will be paid to the reporter for the 200 boxes purchase. And in addition to the official kickback, another part of rebate from the salesman is also available.

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How to Understand “Not Known to the Public” in Trade Secret Cases by China Law?

By Luo Yanjie

Trade secret must be “secret”, a message must be “non-public” for being trade secret. Generally speaking, Information or technique is not generally known for the public and cannot be directly obtained from the open channel. Today we would like to share the topic in China law with readers as follows:

I. The definition of “non-public” in the judicial interpretation

<Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Hearing Civil Cases Involving Unfair Competition> defines the “non-public” as follows:

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How to Define Confidential Measures in Trade Secret Cases?

By Luo Yanjie

Article 10 of China <Law Against Unfair Competition> and Article 219 of <Criminal Law> defines “Trade Secret” as “Trade secret means technical information and operational information which is not known to the public, which is capable of bringing economic benefits to the owner of rights, which has practical applicability and which the owner of rights has taken measures to keep secret.” According to the definition, information must have “confidentiality measures” before it becomes trade secret. While in practice, what measures can be identified as legally effective “confidentiality measures ” has no clear standard. Today we would like to share the topic with readers.

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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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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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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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Blizzard Suing against “WoW” Regredit and Chinese Law on Anti-Regredit

Highlights: Civil litigation as Blizzard uses this time is rarely adopted by Chinese game companies as a way to combat against game regredit. With the same logic as those game players who would rather choose regredit, those companies would rather choose another way, in their opinion, more convenient, quick, efficient and be once for all, for why they shall choose a more time and expense costing solution? Actually, Chinese game companies generally combat against the haunting regredit by directly reporting the cases to the police, charging the creators of regredit for crime of illegal business specified in the Criminal Law.

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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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