Tag Archives: Chinese IP lawyer

Does the Merchandizing Rights Fall into the Protection for Priority Right in China Trademark Cases?

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(By Ning Tinggang) Beijing Intellectual Property Court recently introduced some movie, TV series, music, animation and game related cases it heard in 2015 and 2016 via its public WeChat platform, including the trademark “Kuroko Basketball” invalidity case which inspired me. The way that the court dealt with this case shows a new trend of protecting merchandizing interests which we legal professionals should pay attention to.

Case Introduction

Kuroko Basketball is a popular comic work about basketball created by ふじまき ただとし, a Japanese comics artist. The work was serialized on the magazine SHONEN JUMP published by Shueisha since the second issue in 2009, and then was adapted for an animation and first broadcast on 7th April 2012. The plaintiff, SL Sport Ltd. in Kaiping (“SL Company”), filed a trademark-register application to the trademark office on 19th July 2012. As approved, this trademark (“Disputed Trademark”) should be used under Class 25. In addition, SL Company registered tens of trademarks closely connected with popular comics works such as Kuroko Basketball and SLAM DUNK that Shueisha had published, including trademarks used under Class 18, 24, 25, 35 and other types of commodities or services. Thus, Shueisha filed a request for declaration of invalidity of the Disputed Trademark.

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Revision of the Anti-unfair Competition Law Shall Strengthen Striking with Internet Underground Economy in China

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(By You Yunting) National People’s Congress, the China’s legislature, has authorized the State Administration of Industry and Commerce (the “SAIC”) to propose the revision draft of the  Anti-unfair Competition Law which has been implemented for more than twenty years in China. Recently, Shanghai Administration for Industry and Commerce held a meeting in making suggestions upon business operators and administrative authorities for the revision. In the meeting, I delivered a speech with the following presentation.

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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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