On Friday November 7 I attended and spoke at the US-China IP Summit at Loyola (https://chinaipr.com/2014/09/07/loyola-los-angeles-hosts-us-china-ip-summit-november-7/). Here are some highlights:
Prof. David Nimmer (UCLA) talked about whether there is a need to reintroduce a concept of formalities in copyright again, in order to deal with problems in determining rights and better utilize information technologies.
Dean Liu Chuntian of Renmin University, argued that China’s true economic constitution should be a civil code. He took issue with those that argue the Antimonopoly Law is China’s “new economic constitution.” In addition he expressed concern that IP shouldn’t depart from the civil law. Prof. Liu also reiterated his long-standing opposition to administrative enforcement in civil law matters and also argued that copyright law reform issues should focus on matters of economic importance. Copyright protection of sports broadcasting in China was singled out as such an economically important issue.
Regarding specialized IP courts, Dean Liu also noted that several “10’s of members” of the NPC Standing Committee dissented from the NPC decision. Prof. Luo Li noted that the Beijing Specialized IP Court was established last week, just before APEC. Prof. Luo noted that the jurisdictional divisions of the courts were quite complicated, due to differences in adjudication amongs civil, criminal and administrative jurisdiction. Computer software cases (piracy?) would also be heard by the specialized IP Courts.
I raised concerns in this discussion on the courts about how foreigners would be treated by these specialized courts, in light of evidence that suggests foreigners may fare less well in appellate specialized IP tribunals (see: https://chinaipr.com/2014/08/22/specialized-ip-courts-about-to-launch-in-three-cities-and-are-they-good-for-foreigners/)
Prof. Merges of UC-Berkeley described AIA post grant proceedings as a kind of “quiet harmonization” with foreign practices, including with SIPO. As with China, there is no mandatory stay of civil proceedings during these administrative proceedings.
Prof. Zhang Ping of Peking University discussed the Huawei/InterDigital Corporation case as a pioneering effort on the part of Chinese courts to deal with global standardization crises, including by determining appropriate royalty rates for standards essential patents.
Prof. Huang Wushuang of East China University of Politics and Law discussed current efforts at trade secret legislative work. He noted that he had submitted proposed revisions on the Antiunfair Competition Law regarding trade secrets, by expanding the current one article to 10. His discussions focused on several issues, including what constitutes reasonable precautions to protect trade secrets and the role of non-compete agreements and how to strike a balance between rights of employers and employees. He noted that he did not think it reasonable for injunctions in trade secret matters to be permanent, since every trade secret has its own life span. Regarding damages, he thought that a traditional hierarchy should apply by basing calculations on the plaintiff’s loss, the defendant’s profits, reasonable royalty and statutory damages. He also noted that there were few cases in China which showed a causal relationship between damages and infringing cases.
The last panel discussed trans-border cases and was one where I participated. There was an especially lively discussion on issues involving recognition of judgments and the timely implementation of Hague Convention requests for evidence. Various speakers noted efforts to settle global IP disputes such as by suspending cases in favor or one or more venues, using Hong Kong arbitration for cases involving Chinese entities, and the need for means to resolve increasingly more complicated trans-border disputes.
There were many more great speakers — my notes are hardly complete. Hopefully a transcript or summary of the presentations will be compiled shortly. Kudos to the organizers, including Prof. Song of Loyola, for another great program.
