LONGAN LAW FIRMContents
Long An News
Long An Awarded the Titles of “Excellent Trademark Agency” and “Gold Standard for Trademark Agency Services”
Long An Wins the China Business Law Awards in the fields of ” Labor and Employment Law” and “Intellectual Property (Patent)”
Lawyer Cindy Quan Wins the “Training Contribution Award” by the Japan Intellectual Property Association
China IP News
CNIPA: Template and Guidelines for Patent (Application) Assignment Contracts and Template and Guidelines for Patent Licensing Contracts
China’s State Administration for Market Regulation: Provisions on Prohibiting the Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights to Preclude or Restrict Competition
Long An Top 10 IP Cases in 2022
Unfair Competition Dispute Case Involving Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.
Utility Model Patent Invalidity Dispute Case between Midea and AO Smith
Long An News
Long An Awarded the Titles of “Excellent Trademark Agency” and “Gold Standard for Trademark Agency Services”
The 13th China International Trademark Festival, jointly hosted by the China Trademark Association, Guangdong Provincial Administration for Market Regulation, and Dongguan Municipal People’s Government, was held at the Regal Palace Hotel in Dongguan, Guangdong from June 16 to June 19.
Long An Law Firm was awarded the titles of “Excellent Trademark Agency 2021 – 2022” and “Gold Standard for Trademark Agency Services (the fourth batch)” with its outstanding performance and excellent services in the field of trademark.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/1dKUaFNjKfWuHwk8-jU14w
Long An Wins the China Business Law Awards in the fields of “Labor and Employment Law” and “Intellectual Property (Patent)”
Recently, China Business Law Journal, a renowned legal media, officially announced the list of law firms winning the “China Business Law Awards 2022”. Long An Law Firm was honored with two legal awards in the fields of “Labor and Employment Law” and “Intellectual Property (Patent)” with its outstanding performance.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/hPRS6UCG0sIddI2GqreJFA
Lawyer Cindy Quan Wins the “Training Contribution Award” by the Japan Intellectual Property Association
Recently, the Japan Intellectual Property Association (JIPA) publicly announced the winners of the “Training Contribution Award”, and lawyer Cindy Quan was honored with this award for her outstanding performance in delivering the training courses.
Since June 2013, lawyer Cindy Quan has been serving as a lecturer for JIPA’s training courses, delivering lectures on “Overview of China’s Intellectual Property Law” and “Patent System for Inventions, Utility Models, and Designs and its Application in China” to intellectual property professionals from Japanese companies and law firms, including members of the association, which has received unanimous praise from trainees.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/XU2TmJxrMZsIP19JIpg9-Q
China IP News
CNIPA: Template and Guidelines for Patent (Application) Assignment Contracts and Template and Guidelines for Patent Licensing Contracts
Recently, to provide more standardized, convenient, and efficient registration services for patent assignment contracts and patent licensing contracts, and to better guide the parties involved in preventing legal risks, protecting their legitimate rights and interests, and promoting the implementation of patents, the CNIPA has revised and issued the Template and Guidelines for Patent (Application) Assignment Contracts and Template and Guidelines for Patent Licensing Contracts.
The contract (template) consists of a basic framework including “Delivery of Materials”, “Fees and Payment Methods”, and “Confidentiality Clauses”. Besides, it also gives detailed explanations of the necessary options for both parties when signing the contract.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/pB5Fc64FOfDjHj6zt6xwUg
China’s State Administration for Market Regulation: Provisions on Prohibiting the Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights to Preclude or Restrict Competition
Recently, to maintain a market order of fair competition in the field of intellectual property, the China’s State Administration for Market Regulation has revised and issued the Provisions on Prohibiting the Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights to Preclude or Restrict Competition, which will take effect on August 1, 2023.
Compared to the 2015 version of the Provisions, the recent revision mainly focuses on the following areas:
- The revision expands the scope of “abusing intellectual property rights to preclude or restrict competition.”It includes three categories of monopolistic behaviors within the scope of regulation: using the exercise of intellectual property rights to reach monopoly agreements, abusing a dominant market position, and implementing operator concentration that may have the effect of precluding or restricting competition.
- The revision refines the rules for determining the implementation of monopolistic behaviors through the use of intellectual property rights.In accordance with the amended Anti-Monopoly Law of the People’s Republic of China in 2022 and considering the characteristics of intellectual property and regulatory practices, it further refines the rules related to market definition, determination and presumption of market dominance, identification of monopolistic behaviors, considerations for operator concentration review, and specific types of additional restrictive conditions, in order to strengthen the guidance and operability of the rules.
- The revision also strengthens the regulation of typical and special monopolistic behaviors in the field of intellectual property, including improving regulations related to patent pools, prohibiting entities and members of patent pools from engaging in monopolistic behaviors through the use of patent pools; enhancing regulation on monopolistic behaviors related to standard setting and implementation processes, specifically prohibiting operators with a dominant market position from engaging in “patent hold-up” by using standard essential patents.
https://www.samr.gov.cn/zw/zfxxgk/fdzdgknr/fgs/art/2023/art_e155397fbe5c4c05ad3c1838c1322ad2.html
Long An Top 10 IP Cases in 2022
Unfair Competition Dispute Case Involving Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.
SUMMARY
Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. and Shenzhen Tencent Computer Systems Company Limited are the software copyright owner and game operator of the “Game for Peace” mobile game respectively. After investigation, the plaintiffs found that the defendants were the manufacturers and sellers of the peripherals of Handjoy, and mass-produced, promoted and sold the infringing peripherals with cheating functions as “connect points”, “centering” and “overmatching detection” in the game, which was suspected of constituting unfair competition, and then filed a lawsuit.
On November 16, 2020, the Tianhe District People’s Court made a civil ruling, rejecting the defendant’s application for reconsideration.
TYPICALITY
This case is the first case of keyboard-mouse cheating hardware in China, and also the first act preservation ban for cheating peripherals in online games issued in Guangdong Province, which has remarkable typical significance and industry demonstration significance.
On the one hand, in the context of the Supreme People’s Court’s repeated opinions to guide the application of law in act preservation cases in intellectual property disputes, this case has been fully discussed from five aspects: i.e. the stability of the plaintiff’s claims, the possibility that the defendant’s act constitutes infringement, failure to take act preservation will cause irreparable damage to the legitimate rights and interests of the applicant, taking act preservation will not cause a significant imbalance in the interests of the parties, and taking act preservation will not harm the public interest. The final ruling supports the plaintiff’s application for act preservation. In this case, our attorneys started from the elements of the application for act preservation, and provided sufficient evidence and discussion for each element, and finally won the court’s admission and obtained successful act preservation.
On the other hand, with the continuous development of the online game industry, the market for game peripherals is also booming. Once game peripherals provide cheating function and break the bottom line of “guaranteeing a fair gaming environment”, it may seriously damage the ecosystem of game fair competition, and unreasonably increase game operators’ efforts to maintain the health system of game products and services involved, which will seriously interfere with the normal operation of the games involved. The ruling of this case determines the illegality of the relevant cheating act at the judicial level, and has cracked down on this new type of online illegal industry, which will bring great benefits to the healthy development of the game peripheral market and even the entire game industry.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ef6yCPrrIGQ-2x1EDBguqg
Utility Model Patent Invalidity Dispute Case between Midea and AO Smith
SUMMARY
Midea filed a patent infringement dispute against AO Smith for the utility model patent and an invention patent involved in this case, and the value reached tens of millions of CNY. AO Smith filed a request for invalidation of the two patents. Long An lawyers represented Midea in the two patent invalidation procedures, and the court finally ruled to maintain their validity.
TYPICALITY
The amount of this infringement litigation involved is huge. The correspondence of the infringement is certain, but the stability of the patent is doubtful. The ruling of maintaining the validity of the patents through this procedure will help to speed up the subsequent infringement litigation process and lay the foundation for winning the infringement litigation.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/02kPXc4zd9b6oBtEJbwmXA
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