Trademark

In July, Beijing Higher People’s Court rendered its final order dismissing the appeal and upholding the previous ruling in Armstrong World Industries (China) Ltd. v. Anhui Armstrong Building Material Co., Ltd. regarding trademark infringement and unfair competition.

Patent

In July, the China Technology Exchange Patent Auction (Bio-pharmaceutical Section), was sponsored and officially launched by the Tianjin Institute of Pharmaceutical Research, the Tianjin Taipu Pharmaceutical Intellectual Property Reserve Center and the China Technology Exchange.

International

On July 1st, WIPO issued the Global Innovation Index 2013 and China fell from 34th to 35th compared with 2012.

International

On July 11th, the United States International Trade Commission announced a Section 337 investigation into Sany and its American branch for patent infringement by its crawler cranes of the patents of a U.S. company.

Trademark

On July 18th, Adidas confirmed a settlement with Adivon, under which Adivon would transfer its Chinese trademark and logo to Adidas.

Judicial Adjudication

On July 19th, the Supreme People’s Court officially promulgated Certain Provisions on Disclosing Information on the Lists of Dishonest Persons Subject to Enforcement and established a system of listing dishonest persons subject to enforcement. The promulgation will likely play an important role in difficult IP enforcements.

Patent

On July 30th, China’s first IP Service Alliance was held in Beijing’s Zhongguancun Science Park, and 53 IP service companies became members.

[August]
Patent

In August, the 9th Conference of All-China Patent Attorneys Association concluded in Beijing and the council of the association and relevant department leaders were elected.

Others

In August, Intellectual Property Report of Listed Companies in Pharmaceutical Industry of China was released. The report showed that the overall IP capabilities of listed Chinese companies in the pharmaceutical industry were unbalanced.

Others

Also in August, the Report on Creation Index of China’s Intellectual Property in Judicial Agriculture (2013) was officially released. The report was drafted by China Center for Intellectual Property in Agriculture under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, entrusted by the Science and Education Department of the Ministry of Agriculture.

Judicial Adjudication

On August 6th, Beijing Third Intermediate People’s Court, together with its IP division, was formally inaugurated. The court started to accept and settle cases from August 21st.
Link
Beijing Third Intermediate People’s Court opened
The establishment of Beijing Third Intermediate People’s Court was a major event in China’s judicial practice in 2013. This IP division is the newest such department in China’s judiciary.

International

In August, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced a new statistical method for GDP measurement, which included costs of IP, R&D, entertainment and cultural expenditure, marking the first attempt in the world to adopt SNA-2008 (System of National Accounts 2008).

International

On August 1st, Russia promulgated Anti- Piracy Law, a milestone event for Russia, which tackles, implements and enhances Internet copyright protection.

Judicial Adjudication

In August, Shanghai First Intermediate People’s Court issued an interlocutory injunction prohibiting Huang, a former chief chemistry researcher for a Chinese subsidiary of Eli Lilly and Company, from disclosing, using or allowing others to use the alleged trade secrets contained in 21 confidential documents. This was the first trade secret injunction order issued by a Chinese court.

Judicial Adjudication

On August 1st, Shanghai Higher People’s Court rendered a ruling on the vertical monopoly agreement between Rainbow Medical Equipment & Supply Company (Rainbow) and Johnson & Johnson Medical China Ltd. and Johnson & Johnson Medical Shanghai Ltd. (collectively “Johnson & Johnson”). Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay Rainbow 530,000 yuan in compensation for monopolistic practices. The case was the first of its kind in China, where a plaintiff won a monopoly case.

Judicial Adjudication

On August 8th, Beijing Haidian District People’s Court held a news conference on a pilot program for the centralized adjudication of IP cases by its fifth IP division.

Conference

On August 10th, the Seminar on IP Protection Mode with Chinese Characteristics was successfully held in Shenzhen.
Seminar on IP Protection Mode with Chinese Characteristics
The seminar was jointly organized by China Intellectual Property Law Association, the IP Division of the Supreme People’s Court, and the Theoretical Research Base for the Judicial Protection of IP Rights at Shenzhen University by the Supreme People’s Court. The seminar mainly focused on the theme of “Innovation-driven Development” as proposed at the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and emphasized the corresponding legal guarantees in the areas of socioeconomic development and such systematic legal arrangements.

Trademark

On August 12th, the Supreme People’s Court ruled to dismiss the applicant’s retrial request and uphold the trademark decision by the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board and the administrative ruling by Beijing Higher People’s Court. So far, the Sanya “Haitang Bay in Chinese characters” trademark and cyber-squatting case had come to a victorious end after more than two years of litigation.

Trademark

On August 30th, the revised China's Trademark Law was passed at the 4th Session of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China and shall become effective on May 1st 2014.
Link
Third Revision of China's Trademark Law
China's Trademark Law, which was enacted in 1982 and amended twice in 1993 and 2001, was the first specialized IP law enacted after China’s reform and opening up. The current China's Trademark Law, since its entry into force 30 years ago, has substantially pushed the vigorous development of China’s trademark landscape, and effectively safeguarded the fair and orderly market competition. However, with the development of China’s socialist market economy, some provisions of the current trademark law were difficult to adapt to practical needs, mainly because of the cumbersome trademark registration process, a large number of bad faith trademark registrations and an ineffective enforcement of trademark infringement.
The new trademark law has three goals: first, to further facilitate trademark applications; second, to further safeguard the market order and fair competition; and third, to further strengthen the protections for the exclusive right to use trademarks.

[September]
Copyright

In September, 2013 CPCC Annual Top Ten Chinese Copyright Holders, organized by Copyright Protection Center of China, was officially launched in Beijing.

Conference

On September 12th, China Patent Information Annual Conference 2013 opened in Beijing with the theme of “Patent Information and Innovation-driven Development Strategy.”

Conference

On September 14th and 15th, the Third Chinese Lawyers Copyright Practice Forum was held in Beijing.
Link
Third Chinese Lawyers Copyright Practice Forum
The forum, themed “Copyright Infringement Compensation and Legal Issues Surrounding China’s Copyright Industry on the Backdrop of New Technology Development,” had set up a primary forum, three subforums and a lawyers’ salon. The forum discussed three major topics, namely, “issues in relation to acquisition of evidence and verification in copyright practice,” “forwardlooking issues in copyright practice” and “judicial determination of the amount of copyright infringement compensation,” from the perspectives of government administration, academic research, judicial adjudication, legal services and industrial development. The discussions were novel, forward-looking and professional.

Patent

On September 16th, the Decision of the State Intellectual Property Office on Amending Patent Examination Guidelines (No. 67) was passed and came into force on October 15th.

International

On September 23rd, the Assembly of the International Patent Cooperation Union (PCT Union) at its forty-fourth (19th ordinary) session was held in Geneva. The assembly discussed and passed amendments to the Regulations under the PCT, to be effective since July 1st 2014.

Patent

On September 26th, SIPO’s Guidelines for Determination Criteria for Patent Infringement and Counterfeiting Patents (Draft for Comment), were published to solicit public comments and opinions.

Patent

On September 27th, Protection and Promotion of Patent Regulations of Beijing Municipality was passed at the 6th Session of the Standing Committee of the 14th Beijing Municipal People’s Congress, effective since March 1st 2014.