The fall promises many opportunities to talk and exchange ideas on Chinese IP matters.  Here are a few of the upcoming speaking events that I will be speaking at:

On October 4, 2018, I will be speaking at the University of Nevada Las Vegas program on “Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement at Trade Fairs”.   USPTO Director Iancu will be keynoting, and I will also be joining my former USPTO colleague Conrad Wong at the event.  The seminar will be a great showcase for UNLV Prof. Marketa Trimble’s recent research on enforcement of intellectual property at trade fairs.  I am also looking forward to engaging with my fellow blogger, Prof. Thomas Cotter, who will be moderating my session.

Trade fairs, due to their short duration, their exhibition of leading edge technology, and their potential to disrupt customer and market patterns present unique challenges.  I have  followed China and US enforcement of IP at trade fairs on my blog, as well as when I was IP Attache in Beijing.   As IP Attaché, I helping a US company,  ABRO Industries of South Bend, Indiana, which detected extensive counterfeiting of its product at the Canton Trade Fair by a company called Hunan Magic.  At that time, about 10 years ago, there was a hope that judicial enforcement of IP at trade fairs in China might offer an opportunity to mitigate local protectionism in the court system by providing a judicial venue that is not where a trade fair exhibitor may have its principal place of business.  Several years later, I heard  Chinese companies were also complaining about US trade fair enforcement, and the US and China entered into a bilateral JCCT commitment on this topic.  The use of civil remedies to address trade fair infringements also implicates China’s rare use of preliminary injunctions, which has also been discussed here.

On October 9, 2018, Berkeley Law will be co-hosting the 12^th Annual China Town Hall sponsored by the National Committee on US-China Relations, with former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice joining the discussions being held virtually nation-wide. I will be joined by my colleagues Berkeley (Profs. Merges and Aggarwal) and the Asia Society of Northern California in the local discussions at UC Berkeley Law School.

On November 2, 2018,  I will be returning to John Marshall Law School to moderate a session on Global Issues in IP for its 62nd Annual IP Conference.

On November 6-8, 2018, I will be speaking at the 5^th Annual IP Dealmakers Forum in New York City on “China – Has It Been a Boon for IP Licensing and Enforcement”.  I will also be giving talks at the U.S.-Asia Law Institute of NYU on November 12 and at Columbia Law School on November 13.

On December 1, 2018, I will be speaking in Shenzhen at the first joint Peking University/Transnational Law School / Berkeley Law program on “Entity Formation & Funding: Legal Fundamentals for Startups.”

On December 2, 2018,  I will be speaking in Shanghai at IPBC Asia’s conference on Maximizing  IP Value in Asia, where I will be addressing China’s licensing and enforcement environment.

On December 3-4, 2018, I will be speaking at Tsinghua Law School in Beijing at the first joint Berkeley/Tsinghua program on “Transnational IP Litigation.”  This program promises to have a solid line-up of academics, judges, officials and practitioners.  It is also a topic I have followed extensively here, and previously spoken on at Berkeley.

Note that some of the academic programs are not yet listed on sponsor websites, please reach out to the sponsors or organizers for further information.

Mark Cohen