(By Albert Chen & Huang Mengren) As said in a news report, the trade representative recently announced Taobao.com is removed from US notorious market list, and that could be contributed to Taobao.com’s effort in the last year, including the cleaning up on the website under the cooperation with the right holders and the industry association.

Really, in the last year, we have noticed the endeavor from Taobao.com. The website has executed a MEMO with MPAA, Motion Picture Association of America, to combat any illegal sales of the works registered in MPAA. And also we have seen the it launched the system of spot check over all the products sold on it, the IPR protection platform, and the amendment on IPR articles in Taobao Rules in accordance with its experience on IPR protection and the trend of the market.

But to be removed from the notorious market does not mean it would see no infringement on that website. When confronting with the infringing sale of the product, how could the right holders protect themselves with Taobao’s rules? In today’s post you could see an article previously published on our website, which would guide you to make your own complaint on the infringement found on the website.

Taobao.com, the biggest online transaction website in China, signed the copyright protection memo with International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) in Beijing on 1st, Sep., promising to combat infringement on copyright. (News related, Chinese)

In 2010, the number of online products of Taobao.com has been more than 800 million, with trade volume of 400 billion. Just like eBay, Taobao.com only provides the platform for online transaction instead of sale by itself.

By laws of China, Taobao.com is just a platform with millions of products traded on it; therefore, as a server of online sales platform like eBay, Taobao.com would exempt from tortious liability if it delete the infringing page of products in time after receiving the intellectual property owners’ complaints and verifications.

Of course, the recent civil judgment of joint responsibility on Taobao.com by Beijing Haidian District Court for its failure to delete the infringing page catches our attention. In the case, Taobao.com only remove part of infringement product page links after receiving the notice of infringement and was sentenced to part of the infringement.But we would rather consider it as symbol of China court is paying more attention on right protection on online shopping platform, and it need further observation whether it shall be precedent.

In according with China laws, once infringement is found on Taobao.com, the complaint could be made by following letter form:

Addressing Envelopes:

To： 2F , No.391, Wen’er Road, Hangzhou, China  (310099)

Taobao.com

The Intellectual Property Department of Taobao.com

It has come to our attention that the following commodity(s) on Taobao.com contain(s) materials infringed our rights.

[You should insert the link(s) here]

As the owner of these rights, we have never authorized these online shops to sell the commodity(s) using these [You should fill in with the definite rights e.g. patent or copyright or trademark right] rights.

We believe this is a case of infringement.

We look forward to seeing these commodity(s) getting off the shelf as soon as possible.

Thanks
[You should sign here.]

The attachment of the letter shall also include:

1. The copy of complainant’s ID, passport or examined business license and contact information;

2. The copy of the certificate of patent, registered trademark or copyright signed or sealed by IP owner, as well as the Power of Attorney from the owner for the complaint.

The abovementioned material shall be provided in Chinese.

The complaint from foreigners could possibly be not received due to communication problems, or be delayed for inadequate right certificate, infringement evidence or other materials. Meanwhile, such complaint may also be delayed for long owing to annual leave, training or inner communication within Taobao.com

For above reasons, we suggest you to demand the infringement deletion through Chinese lawyers. The speed and effectiveness are mostly valued in infringement combat, and we are experienced in lawyer’s letter and litigation based on the past services, and also we are practiced in designing the program to combat the infringement on actual situation.

Lawyer Contacts

You Yunting：86-21-52134918  youyunting@debund.com/yytbest@gmail.com

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