LONGAN IP Newsletter No.1 2022

Contents

LongAn IP News

LongAn Ranks 2 in the TOP 25 China IP Domestic Law Firm 2021 by China Intellectual Property Forum

LongAn and LexisNexis jointly launch the LongAn Lectures online courses II–Company Law Series

Jiali Xu, the founding partner of LongAn, invited to attend the 2021 China Enterprise Rights Protection Summit Forum

Cindy Quan and many other lawyers from LongAn selected into the list of the Top 10 Lawyers by China IP Forum

China IP News

CNIPA: Notice on Launching the 2022 Text of the Eleventh Edition of the Nice Classification

CNIPA & NBS: Announcement on the Value-Added Data of China Patent-Intensive Industries 2020

LongAn Case Study  

How to determine whether a game and a novel constitute substantial similarity?


LongAn IP News

LongAn Ranked No. 2 in the TOP 25 China IP Domestic Law Firm 2021 by China Intellectual Property Forum

The China Intellectual Property Forum released the TOP 25 China IP Domestic Law Firm List 2021. LongAn was on the list and ranked 2nd with its outstanding performance in various professional fields, strong team strength and high-quality services.

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/eBwhPy-0ev6gPk6ArHr2GA

 

LongAn and LexisNexis jointly launch the LongAn Lectures online courses II–Company Law Series

Recently, LongAn and LexisNexis jointly launched the second online course series of LongAn Lectures in the LexisNexis. This session of the company law series lecture includes compliance management, risk control and other market concerns, which has won unanimous praise from people from all walks of life. Click the “original text” at the lower left corner of the article from the link below to watch it online.

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/lwbBLrmq0QEg2jdYWjAbYA

 

Mr. Jiali Xu, the founding partner of LongAn, invited to attend the 2021 China Enterprise Rights Protection Summit Forum

On December 26, 2021, the China Enterprise Rights Protection Summit Forum 2021 was held in Shenzhen by the China Industrial Economics Federation. Mr. Jiali Xu, the founding partner of LongAn, was invited to attend the meeting as the president of Beijing Lawyers Law Research Association, and delivered a speech on the theme of “corporate compliance and protection of rights and interests”.

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/RqqG52pB8sr1ulwvsXajuQ

 

Cindy Quan and many other lawyers from LongAn selected into the list of the Top 10 Lawyers by China IP Forum

Recently, the China Intellectual Property Forum released the list of individual awards in the field of intellectual property in 2021.

 

Cindy QUAN, senior partner of LongAn, was awarded the title of “Top 10 IP Barristers of 2021”

Jianjun FU, partner of LongAn, was awarded the title of “Top 10 Patent Attorney of 2021”

Chengyan Zhao, senior consultant of LongAn, was awarded the title of “Top 10 Trademark Attorney of 2021”

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Mc9anh-Oh_16_2f9sqGXjg

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/qNyVt00qLGvBrG7lPbi1cA

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/9uZSBXTlXEht6JUf8ARCng

 

China IP News

CNIPA: Notice on Launching the 2022 Text of the Eleventh Edition of the Nice Classification

On December 27, the CNIPA issued the Notice on Launching the 2022 Text of the Eleventh Edition of the Nice Classification. For trademark registration applications whose filing date is January 1, 2022 or later, the new version of the Nice Classification shall be applied for classification of goods and services, and the original version of the Nice Classification shall be applied to trademark registration applications before January 1, 2022.

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/rhtAgWS4LWx6Q14oP5-qXA

 

CNIPA & NBS: Announcement on the Value-Added Data of China Patent-Intensive Industries 2020

The CNIPA and NBS released the Announcement on the Value-Added Data of China Patent-Intensive Industries 2020. In 2020, the added value of the China patent-intensive industries was CNY 12.1289 trillion, an increase of 5.8% over the previous year (without deducting the price factor, the same below), and 3.1 percentage points higher than the current price growth rate of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the same period; The proportion was 11.97%, an increase of 0.35 percentage points over the previous year.

 

Among them, the new equipment manufacturing industry is the largest, with an added value of CNY 3,419.4 billion, accounting for 28.2% of the added value of patent-intensive industries; followed by the information and communication technology service industry, with an added value of CNY 2,641.5 billion, accounting for 21.8% , rising from the third place in the previous year to the second place; the third is the information and communication technology manufacturing industry, with an added value of CNY 2,417.7 billion, accounting for 19.9%; the smallest is the environmental protection industry, with an added value of CNY 274.8 billion, accounting for 2.3%.

 

In terms of growth rate, the information and communication technology service industry grew by 15.7%, the fastest growth rate. Driven by factors such as the strong demand for epidemic prevention products at home and abroad, and the increase in production arrangements by enterprises, the growth rate of the pharmaceutical and medical industry increased by 10.1%, an increase of 4.7 percentage points over the previous year.

https://www.cnipa.gov.cn/art/2021/12/30/art_74_172509.html

 

LongAn Case Study 

 

How to determine whether a game and a novel constitute substantial similarity?

 

[Summary]

“Doula Continent” (hereinafter referred to as “the novels involved”) is a fantasy novel written by Tang Jia San Shao (Zhang Wei). Zhang Wei exclusively granted the game adaptation rights of the novel to Shanghai Xuanting Entertainment Information Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the “Plaintiff”). At the same time, Zhang Wei also created “The Legend of Doula Continent: Legend of the Gods” (hereinafter referred to as the “Legend of the Gods”).

Chengdu Jiqian Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Defendant 1”) obtained the game adaptation rights of “Legend of the Gods” through multiple sub-licenses. Subsequently, Defendant 1 developed the game software of New Doula Continent (God World Chapter) (hereinafter referred to as “the game involved”), and signed a profit-sharing and cooperation agreement with 4399 Network Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Defendant 2”).

The Plaintiff believed that the Defendants 1 and 2 had infringed on the Plaintiff’s right to adapt the novels involved without authorization, and then sued to the court.

The court of first instance found that the Defendant 1 developed the game involved without the authorization of the Plaintiff, which infringed on the Plaintiff’s right to adapt the work. Therefore, it ruled that the Defendant 1 should compensate the Plaintiff for losses and reasonable expenses of RMB 5 million.

The Defendant refused to accept and filed an appeal. The Jiangsu Higher People’s Court upheld the judgment of the first instance.

[Comments]

  1. Whether the Defendant constitutes copyright infringement should be judged from two aspects: whether the Defendant has “accessed” the work claimed by the Plaintiff, and whether there is a “substantial similarity” between the accused infringing work and the work claimed by the Plaintiff.
  2. “Access” refers to whether the Defendant had the opportunity to learn about or study the work to which the Plaintiff was entitled during the creative process. In judicial practice, it is generally difficult to directly determine the fact of access, and the possibility of access is usually presumed based on facts and evidence. In this case, because the work involved is well-known and was published before the development of the game involved, the court made a factual presumption that the Defendant had “accessed” the work involved.
  3. In judicial practice, the determination of “substantial similarity” generally requires “substantial uses” of these substantive similarities in the works involved. For example, in the case of the copyright infringement dispute between the online game “The Legend of Zhen Huan in the Harem” and the novel with the same name, the court held that “The game involved not only has the same name as the work involved, but also uses the character names, dialogues and storylines of the work involved, which is a specific performance based on the basic content of the work involved, and actually uses the original part of the work involved, reflecting the relationship between the two. Therefore, the defendant violated the right of adaptation of the work involved.”
  4. In this case, when comparing the substantive similarities between the game involved and the work involved, the court of first instance finally found that the game involved used a lot of original expressions of the work involved by comparing the characters, skills, storyline and other elements. The court of second instance decompiled the game resources, extracted the text content and compared it with the content of the work involved, and determined that the defendant constituted infringement.

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/FonDNG8S7XapgbORLfRHtg

 

 

 

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