NTD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

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NTD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ISSUE 03, 2010 Main Contents: 1. Supreme People Court regulate the jurisdiction of first-instance IP 2. A Trademark Infringement Dispute between CHAMPAIGN and CHAMPAGNE 3.

1 NTD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ISSUE 03, 2010 Main Contents: 1. Supreme People Court regulate the jurisdiction of first-instance IP 2. A Trademark Infringement Dispute between CHAMPAIGN and CHAMPAGNE 3. 11th Chinese Patent Awards Issued 4. Wuhan Company Prevailed in Patent Infringement Dispute against a Japanese 5. China Devotes to Raise IPR Use Level by Foreign applications for inventions decreased in Guangdong ranks No.1 in filing paten application in China 8. SAIC safeguards the rights of trademark owners and consumers Supreme People Court regulate the jurisdiction of first-instance IP According to a recent notification from the Supreme People s Court related to the trial of intellectual property cases, the higher people s court in each province shall be the first instance court for cases the value of which is more than 200 million RMB and one of the concerned party does not reside in the same jurisdiction. The higher people s court is also responsible for first-instance IP cases relating to foreign parties, parties from Hong Kong or Macao. The intermediate people s courts are also responsible for first-instance IP cases. With regard to the preliminary courts, they should be authorized by the Supreme Court to handle IP cases as the first instance courts if the case value is more than 5 million RMB or if the value is between 5 million and 10 million and all concerned parties reside in the same jurisdiction where they belong to. With regard to complicated, new or other IP cases of general applicable law, the higher level court may, on its own or upon request, decide whether they take the case or not. In terms of first-instance trial for disputes relating to patent, plant varieties, recognition of well-known marks and anti-trust cases, the special rules formulated by the Supreme People s Court should be complied 1

2 A Trademark Infringement Dispute between CHAMPAIGN and CHAMPAGNE Recently, Beijing No.1 Intermediate People s Court made a ruling at the first instance in favor of Guangzhou Yuanye Cosmetics Company in a trademark dispute case. The Court denied the request of French Champagne Industry Committee for revoking the registration of CHAMPAIGN trademark in goods under Class 3. The Guangzhou YUANYE Cosmetics Co., Ltd (hereinafter referred to as YUANYE Co.) obtained the registration of the disputed trademark in April 2002, and the mark was approved for use in goods of class 3 for cosmetics, perfume and so on. Then French Champagne Industry Committee filed a request to reject the CHAMPAIGN trademark in July 2002, on the ground that the mark "CHAMPAIGN" is the same source of "CHAMPAGNE (Champagne) and its use in the cosmetics will lead confusion among the relevant public. Latter, the court held that though CHAMPAGNE was protected in China as a geographical indication, CHAMPAIGN means plain or field in Chinese, so the registration of CHAMPAIGN would not infringe prior right of CHAMPAGNE in China nor cause public confusion. Therefore, the Court did not support the request of French Champagne Industry Committee and ruled that there was no trademark infringement taken. and Zhejiang. A lot of rewarded projects are in the areas of tele-communication and information industries. The prize appraisal is said to be the first one since the implementation of National IPR Strategy Outline. The appraisal standards not only relied on patented technologies and innovation of the projects, but also the application during the course of market transformation. Since 2010, the appraisal activity will be held once a year instead of every two years. Chinese Patent Gold Prizes were jointly issued by the SIPO and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and Chinese Patent Outstanding Prizes were promulgated by the SIPO Wuhan Company Prevailed in Patent Infringement Dispute against a Japanese Company China Environmental Project Tech Inc (CEPT) won an eight-year legal battle against FKK, a Japanese chemical engineering company for infringement of intellectual rights. The Supreme People's Court made a recent and final decision in favor of the Chinese company, ordering co-defendants, Japan's Fujikasui Engineering (FKK) and Formosa Plastics Corporation USA's wholly owned subsidiary Huayang Engineering a compensation of more than 50 million RMB in damages. 11th Chinese Patent Awards Issued On February 1, the 11th Chinese Patent Award was unveiled in Beijing. Most of the winners were from such places with strong innovative capability and good IPR management such as Beijing, Guangdong CEPT founded in Wuhan in 1994, and it was a pioneer in the technology of flue gas desulphurization (FGD) in the removal of SO2. It had successfully developed a process, which it called Natural Seawater FGD (NSW-FGD) that is very advanced for energy savings and pollution control in the world. A patent application on this 2

3 new technology was later filed before State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO) in December, 1995, and the patent was granted in September, Huayang Engineering, a subsidiary company of Formosa Plastics Corporation initiated a set of FGD equipment from FKK, a Japanese chemical engineering company in 1997 Fujian Province. But the wastewater produced by FKK's FGD technology contained harmful pollutants beyond the Chinese national standard. Huayang Engineering then made a request to CEPT for a feasible study of seawater desulphurization to solve this problem. After gaining the apparatus and technology from CEPT, Huayang Engineering then claimed that it had mastered the technology and the apparatus, all from FKK when upgrading its desulphurization apparatus in August There was no need for CEPT's further involvement. CEPT later filed a lawsuit against FKK and Formosa Plastics Corporation before the Fujian Supreme People's Court in During the court proceedings, FKK filed a request to invalidate CEPT's patent. The patent was maintained by both the Patent Reexamination Board and the Beijing Higher People s Court. On the basis of the valid patent, Fujian Higher People s Court made a ruling in favor of CEPT, and the ruling was further affirmed by the Supreme People s Court. for patent infringement. seminar that by the year 2020, China will develop into a country with higher level use of IPR. The year 2010 is the 25th anniversary when China joined Paris Convention on the Protection of Industrial Property and the 30th anniversary for China being the member of WIPO. For the past 30 years, China has achieved notable achievements in IPR development. The implementation of the national IPR strategy outline further provides incentive for national innovation. As a result of the implementation of the national IPR strategy, both eh patent and trademark applications continued to grow in the year The trademark applications maintained the top position in the world for the 8th consecutive year. Foreign applications for inventions decreased in The statistics from the State Intellectual Property show that there was a decrease of 10.3% of all foreign applications in China, the first time for 10 years. In spite of the decrease in quantity, the quality of the foreign applications is higher, indicating the leading positions in those areas such as electric power, telecommunications, computer technology, optical and audio-visual technology. To be specific, there were a total of 854,770 patent applications for inventions, 525,490 were filed by using PCT channel. The total of granted patents for foreign applicants is 630,980 in China Devotes to Raise IPR Use Level by Commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office recently announced at a WIPO regional In terms of the countries, Japan ranks first with 30,284 applications for inventions, other countries are United States of America with 21,798, European Union with 21,455 and Korea with With regard to the enterprises, a total of 80,900, accounting for 94.6% of all foreign applications for 3

4 inventions. The top three applications are Sony with 1970 applications, Panasonic with 1620, and Philips with The statistic show that the top five technical areas are electric motor, electric devices and electric power with 7010 applications for inventions, telecommunications with 5935, computer technology with 4905, optical technology with 4302, and audio-visual technology with Guangdong ranks No.1 in filing paten application in China According to statistics of the State Intellectual Property Office, the Chinese domestic applications are mostly from the eastern regions and the economically developed areas. The top three provinces are Guangdong, Jiangsu and Beijing, and 40.7% of applications are from these areas. In 2009, the SIPO received a total of 229,096 domestic patent applications for inventions, an increase of 17.7%. The top 10 provinces are Guangdong, Jiangsu, Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Shandong, Liaoning, Tianjin, Sichuan, and Hubei also witnessed the rapid growth of the grant of patents for inventions filed by domestic applicants. The total number of granted patents in 2009 was 65,391, an increase of 40.4%. The top three provinces were Guangdong, Beijing and Shanghai. The statistics also show that there is an increase of patent applications by the mid-western provinces due to the innovative capabilities in these areas. SAIC safeguards the rights of trademark owners and consumers In order to conform to the national strategy of intellectual property, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce promoted the implementation of trademark strategy and has provided a strong protection for the trademarks. Since 2009, a total of illegal cases were investigated and settled by local administrations for industry and commerce across China. In 2009, the SAIC took the following measures: formulating and issuing the Opinions of Further promoting the implementation of trademark strategy and 5 other related documents, holding public activities for the awareness of the trademark strategy and proving trainings and guidance to support the regional economic development, publishing 3226 major trademarks and publishing the 2009 China Trademark Strategy Annual Report, establishing a branch trademark office in Zhongguanchun high tech area. According to the official of the trademark office, the SAIC made significant progress and protected the legal rights and interests of the trademark owners and consumers. These include the submission of the 3rd revision of the trademark law to the State Council and the achievement in trademark examination. In 2009, 1,414,700 trademark applications were examined, an increase of 88.69% as compared with the same period of the previous year. The pending period is shortened to 17 months. For the 8th consecutive year, the trademark application in China ranked the first in the world. The year of 2009 witnessed 830,500 trademark applications. With regard to the protection of the trademark, a total of cases were investigated and settled, of which cases are related to counterfeit 4

5 activities. 13,534,022 trademark representations were seized and destroyed. 109 suspects and 92 cases were transferred to the judicial organs. In order to provide a quick and efficient service to the public, the SAIC strengthened the information infrastructure and made it possible for the computer search, on-line search, on-line publications and submission of applications. In addition, a lot of efforts have been done to encourage the registration of agricultural products and geographical indications. Up to now, there is an accumulated number of 749,800 trademarks related to agriculture and 771 approved geographical indications 5

The primary responsibilities of the SFDA include but are not limited to:

The primary responsibilities of the SFDA include but are not limited to: REGULATORY FRAMEWORK Our products are subject to regulatory controls governing pharmaceutical products and medical appliances and equipment. As a distributor, retailer and manufacturer of pharmaceutical