Category Archives: Trademark

by

Reviewing the 2017 SPC Report on IPR Judicial Protection: The Generalities and the Exceptions

There have been a number of empirical reports in recent weeks on China’s IP system. In this blog, I look at the annual Supreme People’s Court 2017 Report on the Situation Regarding Judicial Enforcement of IPR in China  (中国法院知识产权司法保护状况) which was released during IP week (the “Report”).

According to the Report, 2017 saw a major increase in IP litigation in China.  There were a total of 237,242 cases filed and 225,678 cases concluded, with an increase of 33.50% and 31.43%, respectively, compared to 2016.

First instance cases increased by 47.24% to 201,039.  Patent cases increased 29.56% to 16,010.  Other increases were in trademarks (37,946 cases/39.58%); copyright (137,267/57.80%); competition-related cases (including civil antitrust cases of 114) (2,543/11.24%).  Two counter-cyclical numbers stand out:  technology contract cases dropped by 12.62% to 2,098, and second instance cases increased by only 4.92% or 21,818 cases. Note that disaggregated numbers for civil trade secret cases are not disclosed in the Report, but are presumably included under “competition” cases.

Comparing dockets with the United States, in 2017 United States courts heard 4,057 cases patent cases, 3,781 trademark cases, and 1,019 copyright cases, according to Lex Machina.  The biggest margin of difference between the US and China was clearly in copyright cases.  Chinese courts heard 134.7 times more cases than the United States. However, Chinese copyright cases are less likely to be consolidated amongst different titles, claims or causes of actions, which can inflate the statistics  — although I doubt to a 100 or more fold level.

Administrative cases, the majority of which are constituted by appeals from the patent and trademark offices, showed an overall increase while patent validity cases decreased.  Administrative patent appeals dropped 22.35% to 872 cases, while administrative trademark cases increased to 7,931 cases, or by about 32.40%.  The drop in administrative patent cases is particularly notable in light of the increased activity in patent prosecution and patent licensing.  By comparison the numbers of Inter Partes Reviews undertaken by the USPTO during 2017, according to Lex Machina, were 1,723, in addition to 9 cases involving covered business method patents.

The SPC did not offer disaggregated reversal rates of the PRB and TRAB in its data; combined patent and trademark cases included 964 cases involved  affirming the administrative agency decisions; 150 involving a change in the administrative decision; 5 cases involved a remand for further review; and 24 cases were withdrawn.

Criminal IP cases have also continued to decline.  There were 3,621 first instance criminal IP cases in 2017, a decline of 4.69%.  Among those 3,425 involved trademarks (-3.93%) and 169 involved copyrights (-13.33%).  There was also a decline of 35% in adjudication of criminal trade secret cases to only 26 cases.  The decline in criminal cases since 2012 (when cases totaled over 13,000) especially in copyrights and trade secrets is odd as Chinese leadership has in fact recognized the need for deterrent civil damages, including punitive damages and criminal trade secret

The five provinces that receive the most IP cases continued to grow in influence. Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong saw an aggregate increase of 56.63% in IP cases, to 167,613 and now constitute 70.65% of all IP cases filed in China (p. 6).  Guangdong alone saw an increase of 84.7% to 58,000 cases and Beijing trailed behind at 25,932 cases with an increase of 49.2 percent.  Other less popular destinations also saw dramatic increases.  Jilin province had an increase of 210 percent, while Hunan and Fujian each saw increases of 73.8% and 73.14%.

Settlement and case withdrawal rates also changed in 2017.  Shanghai had the highest reported rate of the big five at 76.31%, while the inland province of Ningxia had an overall rate of 88.46%, including a 100 percent rate where litigants accepted judgments without appealing  服判息诉 (!).

The SPC also reported supporting 11 cross-district IP tribunals in Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Hefei, Fuzhou, Jinan, Qingdao and Shenzhen.  In addition, 10 provinces or autonomous cities established a system of combining civil, criminal and administrative jurisdiction over IP cases in their IP tribunals in the first half of 2017.  As noted however, despite this change in judicial structure, there was a decline in criminal enforcement and in some administrative appeals in 2017 overall (p.11).

The Report also notes that the SPC is actively supporting research on establishing a national specialized appellate IP Court (p. 10).   The SPC also actively participated in the providing comments on other draft laws, and devoted some effort to the revisions of the Anti-Unfair Competition law, including meeting three times with the legal affairs committee of the NPC, as well as numerous phone calls   According to the Report, the “majority of the opinions proposed were adopted into law” which leaves the question of what was not adopted.  One possibility may be the removal of a specific provision treating employees as “undertakings” under the revised AUCL.  In fact, I have heard that some NPC legislators are continuing to push for a stand-alone trade secret to further improve upon the revised AUCL.

The Report also points to several research projects undertaken by provincial courts.  Amongst those of interest are: a research project on disclosure of trade secret information in litigation in Jiangsu; a report on using market guidance for damages compensation of Guangdong Province; a report on standards essential patents in Hubei; and a research project of the Beijing IP Court on judicial protection of IP in international competition.

Regarding transparency, the Report notes that the SPC has published all of its cases on the Internet, however similar data is not provided for other sub-SPC courts (p. 16).

In international affairs, the Report notes that the SPC has participated in the discussions on the proposed treaty on recognition and enforcement of foreign civil judgments (p. 17), in the China-European IP dialogue, and has sent people to the annual meeting of INTA, amongst other activities.  No mention is made of US government engagements (p. 17).  This omission may be due to current political sensitivities.  Nonetheless, due to the increasing number of cross-border disputes and the need for better understanding of both our judicial systems, I believe judicial engagement with Chinese courts would continue to be a fruitful enterprise.  Indeed, Berkeley hopes to host a program on cross-border IP litigation with Tsinghua University Law School later this year.

Finally, while we are on the subject of the courts, I commend Susan Finder’s recent blog on how to translate court terminology.   I hope I have not departed too far here from her excellent suggestions!

by

April 24 – May 7, 2018 Summary

1.NPC Standing Committee Releases 2018 Legislative Plan. The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) on Friday released its annual legislative plan for 2018. As usual, the plan is divided into two sections—the first listing specific legislative projects slated for discussion at the NPCSC’s remaining five sessions in 2018, and second setting forth general guiding principles for its legislative work this year. The plan divides the legislative projects into three categories: (1) those for continued deliberation (that is, those carried over from 2017); (2) those for initial deliberation (that is, bills first submitted in 2018); and (3) preparatory projects.

Below is a list of laws and amendments that implicate IP matters:

E-commerce Law 电子商务法: passed under initial deliberation and is set for continued deliberation. December 2016 draft, October 2017 draft. 

Patent Law (Revision) 专利法(修订): set for initial deliberation in June. Draft released for public comments by the State Council in December 2015.  There have been several blogs previously on the drafting process and controversial issues.

Foreign Investment Law 外商投资法: set for initial deliberation in December. Draft released by the State Council for public comments in January 2015

The 2018 legislative plan also includes a list of preparatory projects, most of which won’t be submitted for deliberation this year. That list includes an Atomic Energy Law and Export Control Law and revision/amendments to Copyright Law.

2. New initiatives released by SIPO on World Intellectual Property Day. During a press conference for the World Intellectual Property Day, Shen Changyu, head of SIPO, made remarks of new initiatives planned by SIPO. According Shen, China is revising its Patent Law and establishing a punitive damages system for intellectual property infringement to increase the cost of illegal behavior and create a deterrent effect. In addition, China pledged to establish more intellectual property protection centers, in addition to the 19 intellectual property protection centers established nationwide. Meanwhile, SIPO planned to release a working guide for Anti-Monopoly law in the field of intellectual property. Should SIPO move ahead with this project, it may be an indication of an increased role for it in the newly reorganized government structure which it shares with China’s antitrust agencies.

As reported before, SIPO and other IP agencies are under reorganization. According to Shen, after the reorganization, SIPO will become the world’s biggest IP office. The new office will have 16000 staff, with 11000 patent examiners and more than 1500 trademark examiners.

3. China’s top court rules in favor of Dior in trademark case. In a judgement on World Intellectual Property day, China’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of Dior in a suit against the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board after a multi-year court battle. The board wrongly rejected a 2015 application by Dior to register a trademark of its tear drop shaped J’adore perfume bottle, the top court said in a statement on its website. Alert blog readers may remember that the Michael Jordan trademark case was similarly held on World IP Day in 2016.

4. Shanghai seizes U.S.-made microchip equipment over IPR. At the start of 2018, Chinese company Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc (AMEC) learned that U.S. equipment suspected of infringing the company’s patents would arrive at Shanghai Pudong International Airport. Shanghai customs authorities then seized the suspected products, Jiefang Daily reported on Friday, citing customs officers. Customs suspended the clearance of the products worth 34 million yuan ($5.36 million). With Customs’ involvement, the U.S. company, whose name was not revealed, negotiated with AMEC. The two sides agreed to settle the dispute by offering cross licenses to each other. Chinese media reported that the case is a rare but important example of using Chinese Customs remedies to address imports of products infringing a Chinese patent to effect a cross-license.  The case appears to be a settlement of a long running dispute between Veeco Instruments of Plainview, NY and AMEC, which was reported in the western press, including the trade press, and also involved invalidity challenges, US court cases and an infringement law suit in Fujian province.   According to the western press on December 7, 2017 the Fujian High Court had granted AMEC’s motion for an injunction prohibiting Veeco Shanghai from importing, manufacturing, selling or offering for sale to any third party infringing an AMEC patent in China (revised June 4, 2018).

Other:

A summary of SPC’s IPR Report 2017 was released, but the whole report will be released in hard copy soon. Here’s the link to the summary.

by

IP House’s Snapshot of Medical and Health Industry

IP House  has recently published a  Statistical Report on IP Cases in the Medical and Health Industry (December 2017) (Chinese language) covering 391 medical and health industry cases closed from January 1, 2016 to June 30, 2016. Among those cases, 158 were civil cases (67 patent and 91 trademark) and 233 were administrative cases (40 patent and 193 trademark).

As explained in further detail below, this time-limited snapshot of medical and health industry cases shows a relatively low utilization by foreigners of civil infringement remedies in both patent and trademark matters.  Foreigners, including Americans, did actively use judicial review procedures of patent and trademark office decisions.  The cases also show low damage awards for pharma infringement cases despite a high win rate.

Patent

  1. Civil Cases

There was a total of 67 civil patent cases in medical and health industry. Guangdong and Jiangsu were the top 2 provinces with close to 42% of the patent litigation. Among all the civil patent cases, around 74.6% were infringement cases, with the balance involving ownership and contract disputes. Infringement of utility model patents and invention patents were the top two claims of action at 24 and 19 cases respectively.   Amongst invention patents, 14 involved medical devices and 5 involved compound patent claims.

Foreigners were minority plaintiffs in these cases, accounting for only 6 out of 67 civil patent cases.  Only one case involved a US party.   Other countries included Japan (2), Norway (2) and Germany (1).   The foreign plaintiff win rate was 83.3% with average damage of 162,001 RMB, slightly higher than the overall winning rate of   82.1%. This “win rate” is approximately similar to win rates being generally report for patent infringement cases in China as reported in a recent article by Bian Renjun.   First instance (一审) infringement trials on average took took 226 days; second instance infringement actions  (二审) on average took 120 days.

Average damages in these actions was 439,896.2 RMB.   Of these, more than 95% of cases used statutory damage to calculate damages.  Two cases that awarded more than 1 million RMB in damages, which were calculated as lost profits.

The principle reason that plaintiffs lost was that the accused product was deemed “not within the scope of protection.” Invalidity was another reason.

  1. Administrative Cases

There was a total of 40 patent administrative cases in the medical and health industry, involving appeals of decisions of patent office decisions.   US entities were a party in seven of the fourteen foreign administrative cases.  This relatively high proportion of foreign administrative cases follows a pattern in judicial IP actions in China where foreign companies generally enjoy a  higher proportion of cases involving validity than in infringement matters.  Amongst all of these cases, the administrative judgment was vacated by court for 6 cases.

As for review period, action of first instance on average took 446 days, and actions of second instance took on average 248 days. Administrative cases took much longer than civil cases to review.  Amongst the administrative cases 72.5% (29 cases) involved drugs, and 27.5%, (11 cases) involved medical devices.  Furthermore, 33 cases involved invention patents and 7 utility model patents

Trademark

  1. Civil Cases

There was a total of 91 trademark cases, where Jiangxi and Guangxi were the top 2 provinces with most cases.  A majority of these cases involved trademark infringement (88). Plaintiff won 78 cases with a win rate of 85.7%. Trademark civil cases on average took 185 days until the first instance judgment and 106 days for second instance judgment.  Drug and health products constituted 81.8% of these cases, with average damages of 61,412.9 RMB.  All these cases used statutory damages, and only one case involved a foreign party (USA).

The relatively low level of trademark infringement cases may be due in part to the active roles played by SAIC in administrative trademark matters, including their handling of foreign related cases as well as administrative enforcement matters undertaken by CFDA and takedown activities by online etailers.  However, the concentration of cases in Jiangxi and Guangxi is difficult to explain, except perhaps due to inexact reporting procedures.

  1. Administrative Cases

There was a total of 193 trademark administrative cases. Among those cases, 62.2% or 120 cases were brought for review on refusal (驳回复审). Administrative judgements were vacated by court for 49 cases. On average, trademark administrative cases took 266 days for actions of first instance, and 113 days for action for second instance.  Foreign cases accounted for 75 of these administrative trademark cases with the US being the party for the most cases (22 cases), following by Japan and Germany.

In administrative trademark cases, when the applicant had been refused grant of the trademark, the courts primarily ruled on the basis that the same similar trademark was used in the same or similar type of product (87 cases).   Another frequent basis was that a trademark was deceptive, and led to consumer confusion regarding quality and origin.

Implications for the future:

This data, although limited, is suggestive of what a further landscape for pharma patent litigation will be if China institutes a patent linkage system.  To speculate: the data does not suggest that foreigners will rush in to assert infringement of their patents, but rather that foreigners currently play a limited role in infringement litigation.   The high foreign and domestic win rate on infringement matters also suggests that a linkage regime could therefore be very helpful in securing cost effective and timely protection of patent rights, even if this right may not be asserted with great frequency.  Finally, the data also suggests that foreigners appear relatively comfortable in pursuing challenges to administrative action in pharma IP matters, and therefor may ultimately be willing to avail themselves of a patent linkage regime administered by CFDA and the courts. I believe a greater factor in determining how much a linkage system may be utilized may be the development of new, innovative drugs that are patent protected by foreign or domestic entities.

Perhaps the readers of this blog have a different opinion –  we look forward to receiving them.

Written by Mark Cohen with the assistance of Emily Yang.

 

 

 

 

by

2017 Opens with More Positive Trademark Developments

The SAIC has announced that it has  amended its TM review and examination standards (“Trademark Review and Examination Standards”).  The revised standards, with a date of December 2016, are available here. The revisions incorporate revisions to Articles 19, 50, 15.2, 1and 10 of the Trademark Law.

In addition, the Supreme People’s Court published a judicial interpretation on Certain Issues Related to Trials of Administrative Cases Involving the Grant and Confirmation of Trademark Rights 最高人民法院关于审理商标授权确权行政案件若干问题的规定.  A public comment draft of the JI was circulated as early as 2014; the final version was released at a press conference on January 11, 2017.   The JI clarifies the application of “adverse influence” in Article 10(1)8 and “other improper means” in Article 44(1) of trademark law and provides details on prior rights of Article 32  including copyright, naming right, trade name,  amongst other provisions.   The Financial Times has suggested that the JI is linked to the Qiaodan case , although as the Chinese media as noted, Qiaodan may also be seen as one of a series of cases providing more expansive relief against abusive registrations and recognizing more extensive related rights, such as naming rights and even merchandising rights.  In an unrelated development, the SPC on January 7, 2017 listed the Qiaodan case  as one of the top 10 civil and administrative cases for 2016.

 The 2016 JCCT obligated China to “take further efforts to address bad faith trademark filings”, according to the recently released Joint Fact Sheet. The amended examination guidleines, JI, and related case developments, including the development of case law in IP,  should help implement this commitment. 

by

Identical vs. Similar Trademarks in Criminal and Civil Adjudication

Both Judge Bao WenkJiong 包文炯 in Zhichanli, and James Luo on his blog, have recently  published  summaries of a 2014 case in Wuxi (无锡滨湖法院(2014)锡滨知刑初字第0002号刑事判决书) involving the definition an “identical” mark under China’s criminal trademark law.

This case raises the important question of the differing roles and standards for civil and criminal prosecution of trademark infringement – an issue that is especially important in light of the many different manners of enforcing IP in China, which also includes an extensive administrative punishment system.

Judge Bao noted that the court held that attention should be paid to avoiding excessive application of the “trademark similarity” standard of civil trademark cases to criminal cases.  More specifically, the case held that a counterfeit “identical trademark” in the criminal law means one that is identical with the registered trademark or not visually different from the registered trademark and therefor is enough to mislead the public.   Where, however, there is a slight difference between the accused counterfeit trademark and the registered trademark, the close similarity is sufficient to cause the relevant public to be confused and it should also be regarded as an “identical trademark.”

The requirement of an “identical trademark” derives from Article 213 of China’s Criminal Code, which provides:

“Whoever, without permission from the owner of a registered trademark, uses a trademark which is identical with the registered trademark on the same kind of commodities shall, if the circumstances are serious, be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention and shall also, or shall only, be fined; if the circumstances are especially serious, the offender shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years and shall also be fined.”

A 2004 judicial interpretation on criminal IP matters (关于办理侵犯知识产权刑事案件具体应用法律若干问题的解释 （2004）) further clarified what constituted an “identical trademark” for purposes of China’s criminal IP laws:

“Article 8: An ‘identical trademark’ as provided for in Article 213 of the Criminal Law refers to the same trademark as the counterfeited registered trademark, or one that is substantially visually indistinguishable from the counterfeited registered trademark, and is sufficient to mislead the public.”

“第八条　刑法第二百一十三条规定的“相同的商标”，是指与被假冒的注册商标完全相同，或者与被假冒的注册商标在视觉上基本无差别、足以对公众产生误导的商标.”

Why should a higher degree of similarity of trademarks be required in criminal trademark cases but not for civil cases?    The critical test, to my mind, should be whether the infringement is willful, and not whether a cunning counterfeiter designed a mark that is insufficiently identical but nonetheless potentially confusing to a segment of the consuming population.  From a policy perspective, public criminal enforcement of the trademark laws can and should protect public interests greater than the legitimate trademark itself, including such interests as purchases by innocent consumers, protecting investment in brand creation and deterring brand dilution, and addressing the confusion of third parties who may be harmed by using these products.  These policies suggest that more liberal construction of what constitutes an “identical” trademark could be useful.   Indeed some courts in the United States have used civil standards to determine when a trademark is counterfeit (United States v. Petrosian , 126 F.3d 1232, 1234 (9th Cir. 1997).  Nonethelesss, even if prosecutors declined to prosecute an “identical” trademark case, the rights owner may still be free to bring a civil case under the “similar trademark” civil standard.

The Chinese summary of the case notes that the Jiangsu IP courts, where this case was held, play a role in delineating the role of the civil and criminal IP systems, as these courts have combined civil, criminal and administrative case adjudication in one tribunal.  I hope that these courts can play an even greater role in clarifying addressing the public policy needs behind different standards of IP protection under China’s civil, criminal and administrative enforcement regimes.

by

E-Commerce Law Up for Public Comment

The National People’s Congress announced this week that it has released a draft of the E-Commerce Law for public comment.  The public comment period began December 27, 2016 with comments due by January 26, 2016.  Although focused on the overall development and regulation of e-commerce, the draft also contains provisions regarding IP protection by platforms and their responsibilities, in order to preserve market order and fair competition 市场秩序与公平竞争.  The draft in Chinese is attached here, with relevant provisions and machine translations below.  I hope to provide more detailed comments later – I am particularly interested in how this draft relates to provisions in the tort law, IP laws and civil laws regarding online liability, as well as how enforcement authority over infringements for online operators will be amended and divided up amongst the various IP agencies if this draft is implemented into law.

Article 53 provides:

第五十三条   电子商务经营主体应当依法保护知识产权，建立知识产权保护规则。电子商务第三方平台明知平台内电子商务经营者侵犯知识产权的，应当依法采取删除、屏蔽、断开链接、终止交易和服务等必要措施。         

Article 53 The electronic commerce business principal operator shall protect intellectual property rights in accordance with the law and establish rules for the protection of intellectual property rights. If the e-commerce operator infringes the intellectual property rights within the platform, it shall take the necessary measures such as deleting, shielding, breaking the link, terminating the transaction and service according to law.

Article 54 provides:

第五十四条   电子商务第三方平台接到知识产权权利人发出的平台内经营者实施知识产权侵权行为通知的，应当及时将该通知转送平台内经营者，并依法采取必要措施。知识产权权利人因通知错误给平台内经营者造成损失的，依法承担民事责任。   

平台内经营者接到转送的通知后，向电子商务第三方平台提交声明保证不存在侵权行为的，电子商务第三方平台应当及时终止所采取的措施，将该经营者的声明转送发出通知的知识产权权利人，并告知该权利人可以向有关行政部门投诉或者向人民法院起诉。   

电子商务第三方平台应当及时公示收到的通知、声明及处理结果.

Article 54 Where a third-party platform for e-commerce receives a notice from a platform operator of intellectual property rights issued by the owner of the platform for intellectual property infringement, it shall promptly transmit the notice to the operators within the platform and take the necessary measures according to law. If the intellectual property right owner causes any loss to the operator of the platform due to the wrong notification, he shall bear civil liability according to law.
If the platform operator submits a declaration to the e-commerce third-party platform to ensure that there is no infringement, the third-party platform shall promptly terminate the measures taken and forward the statement of the operator to the notification Property rights, and inform the right person to the relevant administrative departments of complaints or to the people ‘s court.
E-commerce third-party platform shall promptly publicize the received notice, statement and processing results.

Article 88 provides:

第八十八条   电子商务第三方平台违反本法第五十三条的规定，明知平台内经营者实施侵犯知识产权行为未采取必要措施的，由各级人民政府有关部门责令限期改正；逾期不改正的，责令停业整顿，并处以三万元以上十万元以下的罚款；情节严重的，吊销营业执照，并处以十万元以上五十万元以下的罚款。         

Article 88 If a third-party platform for e-commerce violates the provisions of Article 53 of this Law and knows that the operator of the platform does not take the necessary measures for infringement of intellectual property rights, the relevant departments of the people’s governments at various levels shall order it to make corrections within a prescribed time limit; If the circumstances are serious, the business license shall be revoked and a fine of not less than 100,000 yuan but not more than 500,000 yuan shall be imposed.

 

 

by

Book Review on Report on Development of Intellectual Property Development in China (2015)

The Report on Development of Intellectual Property Development in China 2015 中国知识产权发展报告 (IP Teaching and Research Center of Renmin University of China / IP Academy of Renmin University) (Tsinghua University Press, 2016) (320 pp., 98 RMB) (http://tup.com.cn/booksCenter/book_06886601.html) (the “Report”), is a bilingual Chinese-English report prepared by Renmin University and commissioned by the Ministry of Education.   The book presents a comprehensive summary of developments and challenges in IP protection and enforcement in China, with a particularly strong focus on legislative developments, the role of national plans, the history of IP in China, government funded R&D, education and training-related issues, and the pressing needs of market and legal reforms.

After a general overview (Part I), where the authors discuss various national plans, and general legislation, such as the Civil Law and the Law to Counter Unfair Competition, the authors discuss patents and innovation (Part II).  The Report notes that quality needs to be improved in life science patents, most of which come from small inventors (such as in TCM).  The report also candidly references critiques of SIPO’s performance (p. 150), as well as the low quality of university patent applications and suggests that there should be additional attention paid to university IP commercialization, including the many restrictions that apply to state-owned assets, a matter that was litigated in the Infineon case here in the United States many years ago.  The report also criticizes unrestricted subsidies and other incentives for patent applications, which has led to “the amount of patent applications to be falsely huge” and has given rise the problem of “rubbish patents.” (p. 163).  Regarding China’s extraordinary growth in patent filings, the authors conclude, as I have often in this blog, that “the motivational role of the market should be strengthened” in lieu of such incentives.

Regarding the proposed Patent Law amendments, the authors also argue that judicial decisions on patent validity should be final and not be subject to a final decision by an administrative agency, and that there should be appropriate limitations on administrative enforcement involving patent infringements (pp. 166-167).  The authors also seek to limit the abusive assertion of unexamined utility models and designs, including by authorizing the courts to consider the abusive assertion of patent rights a matter of unfair competition (p. 173).

In discussing trademarks, the authors similarly note that despite the huge numbers of trademark filings, Chinese companies play an undersized role in lists of global brands.  The authors identify problems in “rush registration of trademarks” involving grabbing a trademark previously used by others, particularly where a mark has international popularity, where there are fictional figures and titles of movies and television hits, and in the case of celebrity names (p. 183).   The authors suggest that where a trademark is not being used, there should be no compensation given to the infringer, as one step to address rush registrations – a practice that apparently is already being used in Shanghai and perhaps other courts.  The authors also suggest that in the case of foreign rights owners, the courts should take into account the popularity of the brand enjoyed outside of China and the subjective malice on the person conducting the registration.   As with low quality patents, the author see a useful role for courts in adjudicating these rush registrations as acts of unfair competition (pp. 186-187).

These themes of addressing proposed legislation, adopting new legislation to new circumstances, more effectively insuring that markets rather than government fiat direct IP commercialization and protection,  and using unfair competition law to address abuse of IP rights play an important role in other chapters of the book, including the chapters on Copyright Law (Part IV), Competition law (Part V), IP protection by the Judiciary (Part VI), IP Education (Part VII), developments in Shenzhen City and Jiangsu Province (Part VIII), and other issues, such as free trade agreements (Part IX).

Overall the authors support the role of the courts as the principle vehicle for adjudicating IP disputes in a market-oriented economy, and that the IP laws should be revised to “attach importance to enhancing the leading and final role of the judicial protection of the intellectual property rights, limit and regulate intellectual property-related administrative enforcement …” (p. 240).  The authors also support the tendency to increase damages on IP disputes (P. 282), the role of specialized IP courts and the case law system, and deficiencies in administrative enforcement reform including problems of coordination among agencies.

In their summary, the authors note that “the sound operation of the IP system is not merely an issue of the IP law; it relies on an improved legal system and environment of the rule of law.  Only with innovation based on the market economy and driven by market interest is it possible to be the lasting, stable fore to drive the socio-economic development.” (pp. 315-316).  The book is a very useful summary of some of the hot issues now facing the Chinese IP system, with a focus on rule of law and market orientation.

I look forward to the 2016 edition.