LONGAN LAW FIRMContents
Long An News
Long An Included in the 2024 Legal 500 List
Cindy Xianzhi Quan Appointed Co-Lead of the Global Networking Event by AIPLA Women in IP Law Committee
China News
Decision of the Supreme People’s Court on Revising the Provisions of the SPC on Several Issues Related to the Intellectual Property Court
CNIPA: China and Belt & Road Countries Ten-Year Patent Statistics Report (2013-2022)
China MFA: Unilateral Visa Exemption Policy for France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Malaysia
Changes to Online Trademark Query System Access Address Effective December 1
Long An Top 10 IP Cases in 2022
Dispute over copyright ownership and infringement between Shenzhen Qianhai Blueprint Culture Communication Co., Ltd. and the appellant, Luzhou Yutong Packaging Technology Co., Ltd.
Summary of the judgments of Intellectual Property Court of the SPC 2022
Selection of Patent Administrative Cases
Long An News
Long An Included in the 2024 Legal 500 List
Recently, the internationally renowned legal ranking institution The Legal 500 released its 2024 list of law firms in the Greater China region. Long An was included in the list of the “Firms To Watch” for Intellectual Property and Banking & Financial Services with its outstanding business capabilities and excellent reputation.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/2J-RbHCcdVlleSFZhJ_ikw
Cindy Xianzhi Quan Appointed Co-Lead of the Global Networking Event by AIPLA Women in IP Law Committee
Recently, at the 2023 annual meeting of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) Women in IP Law Committee, the list of members of the Outreach Committee was announced. Cindy Xianzhi Quan, Senior Partner of Long An Law Firm, was appointed as the Co-Lead of the Global Networking Event (GNE).
Lawyer Quan has been serving as the Asian Chair of AIPLA WIP GNE since 2015, organizing the annual international exchange event in the region with great success. In this term, Lawyer Quan, alongside another co-lead Leonor, will be responsible for organizing the AIPLA WIP Global Networking Event in 2024.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ByH9n5w-OO_vwMJWA7m4nQ
China News
Decision of the Supreme People’s Court on Revising the Provisions of the SPC on Several Issues Related to the Intellectual Property Court
The 1901st meeting of the Judicial Committee of the Supreme People’s Court has decided to make the following revisions to the Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues Related to the Intellectual Property Court:
- Article 2 shall be revised to read: The Intellectual Property Court shall hear the following appellate cases:
(1) Administrative appellate cases with respect to the granting and right confirmation of patents, new varieties of plants and integrated circuit layout design;
(2) Civil and administrative appellate cases on the ownership and infringement of patents for inventions, new varieties of plants and integrated circuit layout design;
(3) Major and complicated civil and administrative appellate cases on the ownership and infringement of patents of utility models, technical secrets and computer software; and
(4) Civil and administrative appellate cases on monopoly.
The Intellectual Property Court shall hear the other cases listed below:
(1) Major and complicated civil and administrative cases of first instance nationwide as prescribed in the preceding paragraph;
(2) Cases regarding legal applications for retrial, protest and so on for the effective judgments, rulings and mediations of the civil and administrative cases of first instance as prescribed in the preceding paragraph and which are subject to judicial supervision procedures;
(3) Cases regarding disputes over the jurisdiction of civil and administrative cases of first instance as prescribed in the preceding paragraph, applications for the review of the ruling on act preservation, applications for the review of fines and detention decisions, applications for trial period extension and so on; and
(4) Other cases which should be heard by the Intellectual Property Court as deemed appropriate by the Supreme People’s Court.
- Article 3 shall be revised to read: “The people’s court at a lower level that hears the cases mentioned in Article 2 hereof shall promptly transfer paper and electronic files to the Intellectual Property Court as per the relevant provisions.”
- One article shall be added as Article 4, reading: “The Intellectual Property Court may request the party concerned to disclose the facts of the related cases involving the ownership, infringement and granting and right confirmation of the intellectual property rights. If the party concerned refuses to make truthful disclosure, such refusal may serve as a factor for consideration in determining whether it follows the principles of good faith and whether its act constitutes an abuse of rights.”
- Article 8 shall be renumbered as Article 7, reading: “The case filing information, members of the collegiate bench, trial processes, judgment documents and so on of cases heard by the Intellectual Property Court shall be legally disclosed.”
- Article 11 shall be renumbered as Article 10, and the term “a case of first instance mentioned in Item 1, 2 or 3 of Article 2 hereof” therein shall be revised to read “a civil or administrative case of first instance as prescribed in Paragraph 1 of Article 2 hereof”.
- Articles 4, 5, 12, 13 and 14 shall be deleted.
- The sequential numbering of other articles shall be adjusted accordingly.
The Decision shall come into force as of November 1, 2023.
In accordance with the Decision, the Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues Related to the Intellectual Property Court shall be re-promulgated after corresponding revisions are made.
https://ipc.court.gov.cn/zh-cn/news/view-2600.html
CNIPA: China and Belt & Road Countries Ten-Year Patent Statistics Report (2013-2022)
Recently, the CNIPA released the China and Belt & Road Countries Ten-Year Patent Statistics Report (2013-2022).
The patent activities between China and Belt & Road countries has achieved mutual growth. Over the past decade, Chinese applicants filed a total of 67,000 patent applications in 50 Belt and Road countries, with an average annual growth rate of 25.8%. The cumulative number of granted patents reached 35,000, with an average annual growth rate of 23.8%. Additionally, 115 Belt and Road countries filed patent applications in China, with a total of 253,000 applications and 112,000 granted patents. The annual growth rates were 5.4% and 9.8% respectively, exceeding the overall growth rates of foreign patent applications in China by 2.9 percentage points and of foreign granted patents in China by 5.6 percentage points.
Chinese companies have strengthened their patent activities in Belt & Road countries. Over the past decade, a total of 6,882 Chinese companies engaged in patent application activities in these countries. The top five companies in terms of the number of patent applications, all with over 2,000 applications, are Huawei (6,586), Xiaomi (2,807), Alibaba (2,557), ZTE (2,243), and Tencent (2,089).
Patent activities in key fields such as digital technology has been on the rise. Over the past ten years, digital communication (12,000) and computer technology (9,000) occupied the largest proportion of patent applications in Belt & Road countries, accounting for 31.3% of the total applications. In terms of foreign patent applications in China, digital technology fields such as semiconductors (16,000), computer technology (15,000), and digital communication (13,000) occupied the largest proportion, accounting for 27.3% of the total applications.
Innovations in green Belt & Road construction are accelerating. Over the past decade, China has filed a total of 3,549 green and low-carbon technology invention patent applications in Belt & Road countries, with an average annual growth rate of 16.7%. The number of granted patents reached 1,884, with an average annual growth rate of 15.8%. Since 2020, the green and low-carbon technology invention patent applications have shown accelerated growth, with an average annual growth rate of 37.3% over the past three years.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/RwamNBhNJvMnOc3THXkpkQ
China MFA: Unilateral Visa Exemption Policy for France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Malaysia
On November 24th, spokesperson Ning MAO of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that, in order to further facilitate people-to-people exchanges between China and foreign nations, China has decided to implement an expanded unilateral visa exemption policy. This policy will apply to ordinary passport holders from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Malaysia.
From December 1, 2023 to November 30, 2024, individuals from the abovementioned countries holding ordinary passports who visit China for business, tourism, family visits, or transit for a period not exceeding 15 days will be eligible for visa-free entry.
https://news.cctv.com/2023/11/24/ARTI5K6k4cvtmxGeqLq876O1231124.shtml
Changes to Online Trademark Query System Access Address Effective December 1
Effective December 1, the access address for the online trademark query system will be changed to enhance website security and performance. The new access address for the trademark online query system will be https://wcjs.sbj.cnipa.gov.cn/. We sincerely appreciate your understanding regarding any inconvenience this adjustment may cause.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/cJL7DDzeoKZUPm6meVD4TA
Long An Top 10 IP Cases in 2022
Dispute over copyright ownership and infringement between Shenzhen Qianhai Blueprint Culture Communication Co., Ltd. and the appellant, Luzhou Yutong Packaging Technology Co., Ltd.
Summary
In this case, the plaintiff signed a Packaging Design Contract with the third party, according to which the plaintiff designs the wine packaging box for the third party, and has the right to publish, sign, modify and protect the integrity of the product design. The plaintiff believed that the defendant had infringed upon its copyright and filed a lawsuit, claiming compensation of CNY 1.5 million for mental damage, CNY 90,000 for attorney’s fee, and CNY 1,600 for reasonable expenses.
Long An lawyers carefully studied the plaintiff’s statement of complaint and evidence, and finally found that the plaintiff had no reason of rights and was not a qualified subject of the case, and the lawsuit filed had no factual and legal basis.
First of all, according to the evidence submitted by the plaintiff, after the third party pays the fee, the relevant rights of the work belong to the third party. Even if the plaintiff signed a supplementary agreement with the third party, according to the provisions of the Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China, the rights of publication, authorship, modification, and protection of the integrity of the work information claimed by the plaintiff in this case belong to the moral rights of the author, and the transfer of moral rights is prohibited.
Secondly, during the trial of the case, the plaintiff claimed that it had the right of authorship, and believed that the work was a product design drawing of a work for hire. However, according to the provisions of applicable laws, the author/designer owns the authorship right of the product design drawing, and other rights are owned by the legal person/plaintiff.
Finally, through the hard work, the court of first instance accepted the opinion of Long An and ruled to reject the plaintiff’s claims. The court of second instance upheld the ruling of the court of first instance.
Typicality
First of all, the basis of rights is the foundation and key in intellectual property cases. Especially in copyright infringement disputes, the correct choice of the subject right is the basis for winning the case.
Secondly, Long An lawyer carefully studied the case files and actively searched for defense points that are beneficial to the client, and finally protected the legitimate rights and interests of the client.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/QxKDsQApUa6H1AoxnZSYAw
Summary of Judgments of Intellectual Property Court of the SPC 2022
Selection of Patent Administrative Cases
In order to present the judicial philosophy, trial approach, and judgment methods of the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People’s Court in technology-related intellectual property and antitrust cases, the Court has selected 61 typical cases from the 3,468 cases concluded in 2022, and extracted 75 key points of the judgments to form the Summary of Judgments of Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People’s Court (2022). In the following, we present some of the classic cases from this Summary.
Judgment of general consumers on components design
Case No. (2021) SPC Zhi Xing Zhong 464
[Judgment Summary]
General consumers of design products usually include people who can observe or pay attention to the appearance of products during product sales and use. If the function and use of a product have determined that it can only be used as a component of an assembled product, and the end user of the assembled product cannot observe the appearance of the component during the normal use of the assembled product, then the general consumers mainly include the direct purchaser and installer of the component.
Impact of design with both functionality and aesthetics on overall visual effect
Case No. (2021) SPC Zhi Xing Zhong 464
[Judgment Summary]
When the design of a certain part of a product is not limited solely by its function, the impact of the design of this part on the overall visual effect depends on whether the general consumers’ attention to it is mainly out of functional considerations or aesthetic considerations. If general consumers pay attention to this part during normal use of the product mainly out of consideration of related functions rather than visual aesthetics, it can be determined that the design of this part will hardly have a significant impact on the overall visual effect.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/9_Fr0GumAXUjEumVed_5yA
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