On 11 November 2020, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress passed the amendments to the China Copyright Law (the Amendments), which will take effect on 1 June 2021. This is the third time the Copyright Law has
Further to the award of punitive damages to Balanced Body (revisit our blog post here), we have seen a string of cases in the first half of 2020 where Chinese judges awarded punitive damages to trade mark owners for
Putting aside some recent COVID-related bumps in the road, China remains the world’s largest manufacturer. A large portion of its manufacturing consists of original equipment manufacturing (OEM) under contract. OEM involves manufacturing goods intended for export only, and not for sale domestically in China. This business model has solidified China as a critical manufacturing hub for businesses globally.
On 3rd July 2020, the National People’s Congress (NPC) of the People’s Republic of China released a second draft of proposed amendments to the PRC Patent Law for public consultation. In response to opinions from various government authorities and
New Balance, the US sports shoemaker, has had a tough time of it in the PRC IP courts over the last twenty years, in particular against Niu Ba Lun (China) Co., Ltd. and its predecessors (New Barlun), a
In September 2019, the Shanghai Pudong District People’s Court awarded triple punitive damages to Balanced Body Inc., which according to the Shanghai government news report was the first such award for a Shanghai Court to a foreign plaintiff.
Background
Balanced
Global trade is currently a clear focus between nations around the world, and we are seeing trade agreement negotiations effecting world economies in an increasingly direct fashion. As IP specialists, we are always alive to the legal developments that fall out of these negotiations, particularly how they impact domestic laws in relation to balancing the competing interests between protecting IP rights with facilitating free trade.
For many years China has made deliberate attempts to model itself as a strong intellectual property (IP) economy. The Chinese IP system continues to evolve, and, most recently, changes coming into effect on 1 November 2019 have been made to
Complaints regarding the growth of bad faith trade mark applications in China have been raised for a while now. The existing Trade Mark Law in China does not readily imply bad faith on trade mark applicants with no genuine intention
Chinese squatters can easily file applications for trademarks which are identical or similar to foreign brands.