Tag Archives: civil lawsuit

First China Trade Secret Litigation Injunction Ends in Favor of Eli Lily and Company

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(By You Yunting) We have introduced that Shanghai court issued the first trade secret litigation injunction in China pursuant to the new Civil Procedure Law. Recent, Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court made a judgment in favor of U.S. drug maker Eli Lily and Company and Eli Lily (China), determining that the defendant must cease infringing the trade secret of the plaintiff. In today’s post, we will introduce the abstract the judgment following with our comments.

Introduction to the Case:

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Why China Court Protects Violation Against GPL License Agreement?

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(By You Yunting) We could find no regulation in China’s Copyright Law and Regulation on the Protection of Computer Software with regard to the open source software. In a dispute judged by Haidian People’s Court in the 1st instance and Beijing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court in the 2nd instance, though both courts determined the validity of the open source agreement, they supported those violating the GNU GPL as failed in disclosing newly added source code could claim the copyright over the new work. To our understanding, the case, on the  one hand, had showed the pragmatism of China courts, and on the other hand, it also demonstrated that the open source software organization is necessarily to be seen in the right protection on the OSS software.

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The Development of China Court’s Judgment over Criminal Offence of Online Game Cheating Programs, III

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Today, our website will introduce the most recent crime adopted by courts in some regions of China to combat online game cheating programs: the crime of damaging computer information systems.

III. The crime of damaging computer information systems

Although there problems with all of the crimes previously discussed for combating cheating programs, with the strengthening of legislation, the online game industry finally found a suitable crime in 2011. According to Article 286 of the Criminal Law:

“Those who violate the law by deleting, modifying, adding, or interfering with the function of computer information systems so that information systems are unable to run normally, which leads to severe consequences, may be sentenced to imprisonment of no more than five years of detention; when the consequences are especially severe, the violator may be sentenced to imprisonment of more than five years. Those who violate the law by deleting, modifying, or adding data or applicable procedures to the storage, processing, or transmission programs in computer information systems, which leads to severe consequences, may be punished as per the preceding paragraph.”

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The Development of China Court’s Judgment over Criminal Offence of Online Game Cheating Programs, II

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Today, we will introduce the second crime adopted in China to combat cheating programs in online games: criminal copyright infringement.

II. The state of criminal copyright infringement

After years of combating cheating programs using the crime of illegal operation, the judicial organs in some regions tried to use criminal copyright infringement from Article 217 of the Criminal Law to combat cheating programs. The subjective aspect of criminal copyright infringement requires the unlicensed copying and distribution of the copyrighted work of another for profit.

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The Development of China Court’s Judgment over Criminal Offence of Online Game Cheating Programs, I

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(By You Yunting) Since Shanda imported the massively popular online game, MIR, from South Korea in 2001, the online game industry has gradually become one of the most profitable businesses in China, and has made a fortune for tycoons such as Chen Tianqiao and Ding Lei. On the other hand, all kinds of illicit activities have arisen with the development of the online game business, among which cheating programs to assist players is the most troublesome for the game companies.

According to information acquired by the writer while working in a game company, cheating programs are software that run with the game software, thus giving them their name as game cheating programs. Cheating programs have several harms. First, they incur Gresham’s Law (bad money chases out good money), which makes rules-obeying players easily defeated and thereby damages the fairness of the game. Second they put more burden on the server and force the operator to purchase more servers and the bandwidth, which undoubtedly increases costs and decreases the stability of the server. Third, they enable players to fulfill game objective more quickly, which abnormally speeds up the progress of the game and could force the game company invest more human resources into developing new game content or elements. Although it is possible that some cheating programs are used to make up for the defects in the game, most have harmed the gaming experience, added costs of the company’s development and operation, and could jeopardize stable running of the game.

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China’s New Civil Procedure Law behind the Application for an Injunction of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Company

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(By Albert Chen) Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Company’s lawsuit (GPC) against Jia Duo Bao (JDB) for false advertising was heard in January of this year at the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court. In addition to the arguments held by each party regarding the false advertising, they also disputed whether an injunction could be issued as applied to GPC. Ultimately, the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court approved the injunction, basing its decision on findings that  JDB had exploited GPC through false advertising, thereby confusing and misleading consumers. The Court  then prohibited JDB from making advertisements with claims that GPC’s vitamin drink “Wang Lao Ji” had changed its name to JDB, or any other similar slogans indicating that somehow GPC’s Wang Lao Ji product was the same as JDB’s as the result of a name change.

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The Court Ultimately Supported Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holding Company’s Application for an Injunction

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(BY Albert Chen  ) Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holding Company (“GPHC”) is the holder of the王老吉 (the “Wang Lao Ji”) trademark in mainland China. In 2000, it licensed Hongdao Group, a Hong Kong admitted company, to use the trademark. After Hongdao Group used the trademark and caused it to develop a definite business reputation, however, a dispute broke out between the two parties over the right to use the Wang Lao Ji trademark.

In the first round of the fighting between the parties, GPHC used arbitration with CIETAC to cancel the supplementary agreements signed between two parties in 2002 and 2003 based upon the fact that the agreements were executed under commercial bribery. This website has discussed the implementation problems arising in that case. After that, the subsidiary of Hongdao Group that had sold Wang Lao Ji, Jia Duo Bao (“JDB”) began to sell its herbal tea under the brand name 加多宝(the “JDB”) Additionally, JDB used disputed slogans, such as “Wang Lao Ji now calls itself JDB,” “China’s top selling red can herbal tea now call itself JDB.” Claiming that such slogans constituted false advertising or unfair competition GPHC filed for an injunction with the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court and demanded an immediate halt to such advertisements.

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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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When Could Come the Decision of the 2nd Instance on the iPad Trademark Dispute？

As interviewed by China media Shanghai Business, when could come the decision of the 2nd instance on the iPad dispute, which hearing will be held on 29th February, 2012, Mr. You Yunting replied as follows:

For the court is less likely to make the decision on the coming hearing on the case, we estimate no such decision could be made till the expiration of the lawsuit time limit. By PRC Civil Litigation Law, the hearing on the appealed case shall be decided within 3 months from the filing day of the 2nd instance. For any prolonged on the procedure, it shall be approved by the chief judge of the court. Therefore, we estimate the case could be decided 2 months after the hearing for it could be filed 1 month before the proceeding, and the specific date of the decision may be the end of April.

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