Category Archives: Conferences

by

Second Annual Berkeley-Tsinghua Transnational IP Litigation Conference Is Fast Approaching

Transnational-Conference-new-ver-823x1024

Berkeley Law and Tsinghua law will be co-hosting their Second Annual Conference on Transnational IP Litigation, at the campus of UC Berkeley on October 22, 2019.  Details, including registration information, are available here.

The program will look at strategic concerns in many of the hot issues in cross-border US-China IP litigation, including trade secret cases, standards-essential patents, whether foreigners “win” in each other’s jurisdictions, Section 337, criminal cases, on-line enforcement, civil litigation and the role of China’s new IP courts, administrative challenges to validity, forum non conveniens claims, enforcement at trade fairs, and other issues.  Please register soon if you are interested in attending.

We have great speakers and we look forward to having a great audience!

by

Upcoming Program on Fashion and IP Law

I will be speaking on February 20, 2019 at Berkeley Law at 12:50 in a Fashion and IP discussion and screening with my former Fordham colleague Prof. Susan Scafidi. We will be screening the recent film Fashion and IP.

The program is free and open to the public.

Fashion and IP Poster - Feb. 20th (1)

 

Here’s a report from last year  of the Council of Fashion Designers of America on the problem of bad faith registrations of trademarks in China which discusses the pervasiveness of the problem, including the costs imposed on small and medium enterprise members, as well as the impact of serial squatters.

This report further underscores the importance of addressing tolerance of bad faith activities in China’s IP regime in current bilateral trade discussions as well as the need to recognize the significant improvements that are being made that have begun to address them.  Amongst the many significant cases addressing bad faith registrations in the clothing sector was the Michael Jordan case in 2016, which was based in part on naming rights and was reported here.  Another significant case from last year involving protection of trademarks and design elements that has significance for the fashion industry was Bayer v. Li Qing, which involved pirating of a Bayer design for its Coppertone lotions for pirate registrations, and Bayer’s assertions of a copyright interest in those designs to defeat the pirate’s assertions of trademark infringement in a declaratory judgment action involving the anti-unfair competition law, trademark and copyright laws.  The case was also notable as the court did not suspend its decisions pending the outcome of trademark invalidity decisions.

by

Upcoming Berkeley Law Privacy Conference

China is developing a robust commercial privacy and cybersecurity framework. A cybersecurity law took effect in 2017, multiple agencies are issuing guidelines, and a new e-commerce law with privacy and cybersecurity provisions just entered into force on January 1, 2019.  Further privacy legislation is being drafted, as China may be looking to develop a companion to the comprehensive privacy law of Europe. (Meanwhile, the US has no comprehensive privacy or cybersecurity law; Congress will debate the issue this year, but the outcome is quite uncertain.)

This raises a number of provocative question: In terms of the relationship between consumers and corporations, is China becoming more privacy-protective than the US? How should we understand the overall privacy and cybersecurity trends in China? How well does China’s overall legal environment support the implementation of the new and proposed laws?

To try to answer some of these questions, the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology is organizing a one-day conference in San Francisco on March 1.  The agenda is here; registration is here.

Much of the focus will be comparative, with an emphasis on interoperability and cross-border compliance: Given the rapid developments in privacy and cybersecurity law in China and Europe, how can innovative companies that want to offer their goods and services worldwide comply? Topics will include the definition of reasonable cybersecurity standards under the laws of China, the EU and the US; corporate data governance strategies in the face of overlapping requirements; and enforcement.

The event is co-sponsored by Peking University, The EastWest Institute, The United States Information Technology Office (USITO), The Asia Society, JD.com, and New America.

by

Sedona Conference January 17: Patent Protection and International Competitiveness

On January 17, 2019 in Washington, DC, many of the country’s leading patent experts, including USPTO Director Andrei Iancu, will gather to discuss how the U.S. patent system can be optimized for the benefit of all stakeholders.  The focus this year is on  “Promoting Invention, Entrepreneurship, Economic Growth, and Job Creation” .  The initial sessions focus on statutory subject matter, PTAB and remedies.  I will be participating in the last session focusing on how developments in Europe and China differ from the United States and could impact the innovation ecosystems of each region.   Former Chief Judge Paul Michel and former USPTO Director David Kappos will be co-moderating this session, which will also include former WIPO Deputy Director General for Innovation and Technology, Jim Pooley, Galit Gonen from Teva and Ami Patel Shah from Fortress Investment Group.

I have followed some of these issues in this blog, including the SIPO examination guideline revisions on software and life science patents, the role of industrial policy in patent grants in China, and the availability of injunctive relief (including in SEP cases, as well as preliminary injunctions).   The problems in differing approaches to patentability was also highlighted by me in written testimony before the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission earlier this year (see p. 145).

Sedona conferences are highly interactive, policy-oriented expert discussions.  These are typically not one-off events, as they can often involve follow-up in the form of position papers or other efforts.

I hope that some of the readers from this blog can attend and contribute their insights, especially to my session. If you are interested, please register now.  More information about the Conference can be found on The Sedona Conference website.

by

SO MANY CHINA IP CONFERENCES, SO LITTLE TIME…

markatjmls

Here’s a rundown of some past events, and some upcoming ones.  I will provide an update on some of the legal developments at a later date (I know I have been a bit remiss).

On October 4, 2018, I spoke about China at the University of Nevada Las Vegas’ program  on “Intellectual Property Enforcement at Trade Fairs.”   My observations: (a) China does not routinely great preliminary injunctions at trade fairs, despite heavy reliance on injunctive relief in final adjudication of IP infringements;  (b) The United States does have robust preliminary injunction/temporary restraining order trade fair remedies; (c) the use of sui generis administrative or quasi-administrative enforcement mechanisms for trade fair enforcement in China may be one reason that judicial remedies are not that common; (d) trade fairs do afford other opportunites – they are excellent evidence gathering opportunities, their use can help satisfy use requirements for a trademark, and they may constitute infringing conduct as an “offer for sale” under the patent law.  Please look through my  power point and tell me if you have any comments.

On November 2, 2018.  John Marshall Law School (JMLS) convened its 62nd annual IP conference I chaired a great breakout session on international developments, with Kira Alvarez, Peter Yu, Cynthia Ho, Tobias Hahn and Prof. Dennis Crouch.   The session discussed the state of global IP and China-specific IP negotiations in the Trump administration.   Kira Alvarez noted the success of the administration in negotiation trade secret commitments in the revised NAFTA.  The panel, along with the audience, also discussed the role of soft diplomacy, rather than trade disputes, to resolve IP-related trade conflicts.  Prof. Dennis Crouch attributed many of the changes in civil litigation globally to the work of former Chief Judge Rader “who was really using his gregarious nature to reach out and become close friends with the leading jurists around the world.”  This point was restated by many during the conference and thereafter.  The photo above is from the JMLS international IP panel with Kira to my right.

I also participated at the JMLS annual IP  conference in a plenary discussion on antitrust and IP developments, moderated by Prof. Hugh Hansen of Fordham with  Carlos Aboim, David Djavaherian, Suzanne Munck (FTC),  Prof. Ioannis Lianos, University College London and  Annsley Merelle Ward.   I looked at the evolution of Chinese judicial practice regarding SEPS, which are a remarkable set of steps in light of there being no substantive change in antitrust or patent law during this period, and likely reflect increased judicial experience as well as the impact of economic changes in China as an emerging licensor.  These developments were previously discussed in this blog.  I also discussed China’s historical reliance on civil law measures to deal with IP misuse, rather than remedies under the patent law or antitrust law, and how these compare with US practice.

On November 5, 2018, Dan Rosen (Rhodium Group) launched another path breaking paper “Missing Link – Corporate Governance in China’s State Sector” at the Asia Society of Northern California.  A copy can be found here.  The video of the launch can be found here.  The focus of my comments was on whether SOE’s can play a more active role in China’s innovation plans, and the awkward fit between SOE’s and global trading rules.  I believed that existing efforts to provide greater market accountability and transparency for SOE’s (and more broadly, China) have not achieved their intended outcomes despite  the extensive commitments negotiated with China at WTO accession.

I gave a talk at the IP Dealmakers Forum in NY on November 8, 2018 with several individuals involved in financing litigation, providing patent analytics, buying Chinese patents  – Roger Tu, Y. P. Jou,  Brian Yates, iPEL, and Bill Yuen.  Brian Yates’ company had just been the subject of a Chinese article regarding whether patent assertion entities will now be/should now be coming to China, that was posted by IPHouse.  I think many in the room shared my skepticism that China was now “ripe” for this type of activity, particularly for litigation by foreigners against Chinese.  There was however a general sense that the IP and litigation environment was improving.

In addition to these programs, here are some upcoming events;

November 12, 2018, I will be talking at NYU.  I have always greatly enjoyed the open discussions with Prof. Jerome Cohen (no relation), Ira Belkin and others, and I believe this upcoming event will be no different in my current role at UC Berkeley.

On November 13, 2018, I will be at Columbia University talking about “IP and the China Trade War: Long Overdue, a Pretext, or Both?”     I may be guided by the discussions around that topic at JMLS earlier in November, where many concurred that these actions on IP in China are both overdue and dwarfed by other concerns.

On December 2, 2018, I will be in Shenzhen. Peking University School of Transnational Law (“STL”) will be partnering with Berkeley to present an exciting program on “Legal and  Funding Issues for Successful Startups.”  Both the topics and speakers promise to make this an especially exciting launch event. Here’s the link to register.

On December 3, 2018, I will be at IPBC  Asia moderating a session on “China’s Mandate to Innovate” and its impact on IP commercialization. IPBC has constituted a great panel, including former SPC Chief IP Judge Kong Xiangjun, now Dean at Jiaotong University Law School, and Prof. Yang Guohua of Tsinghua Law School (former Chinese IP Attaché in the US, and DDG of MOfCOM), as well as Liren Chen, from Qualcomm, Eeva Hakoranta from Nokia and Roger Tu from Marconi.

On December 4, I will be at Tsinghua University speaking at the first annual Tsinghua/Berkeley conference on “Transnational IP Litigation: Opportunities and Challenges”.  A copy of the agenda (Chinese) is found here.   We will also have some great speakers for this launch event which focuses, non-exclusively, on US developments.  The speakers include several Tsinghua and Berkeley professors, and leading attorneys from practice in the US and China.  The program will cover a full range of issues including empirical data on litigation trends, venue, jury trials, Section 337 litigation, antitrust, the role of expert witnesses, and licensing strategies to mitigate risk.

I have some other events upcoming in Taiwan in December – but that will be another posting, along with some overdue updates on Chinese IP developments.