On April 10, 2014, Beijing Eat IP organized a team to attend the AUTM Asia 2014 in Taipei. During the conference, many worldwide intellectual property experts discussed important issues in the field, including industry-academia collation, technology transfer, innovation creation, intangible property evaluation, high value patent, resolution of intellectual property disputes in litigation, arbitration, and mediation, recent breakthroughs in life science/agriculture technology, ICT, and creative industries.

The Decisions on Amending the Chinese Trademark Law promulgated by the fourth meeting of the Twelfth Standing Committee of National People’s Congress shall come into effect on May 1, 2014. In order to implement the new Chinese Trademark Law, some issues of bridging the previous and new Chinese Trademark Law are hereby noticed as follows

The Interpretations of the Supreme People’s Court Concerning the Jurisdiction and Application Law in the Cases of Trademarks after the Entry into Force of the Decision Amending the Chinese Trademark Law have been adopted at the 1606th Session of the Judicial Committee of the Supreme People’s Court on February 10, 2014, and are hereby promulgated for implementation as of May 1, 2014.

On March 17, 2014, the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) issued Order No. 68 Promulgating “SIPO’s Decision on Amendments to Guidelines for Patent Examination.” Under this order, graphic user interfaces (GUI) will become eligible for design patent protection as of May 1, 2014.

The TRAB (Trademark Review and Adjudication Board) comments on a typical trademark opposition appeal case involving the well-known mark of a worldwide well-known website on China Industry and Commerce News (newspaper hosted by SAIC – State Administration for Industry and Commerce, who oversees both Chinese Trademark Office and the TRAB).

Beijing East IP Ltd. will fund 2 million yuan in 2014, to create Gao Lulin Foundation in name of our Chairman, Dr. Lulin Gao. The Gao Lulin Foundation will support the research activities and award the outstanding talents in field of intellectual property, to help development of intellectual property community of China.

In January 2014, Patent Reexamination Board (PRB) issued a ruling favorable to a leading European company (the “Company” hereinafter) represented by Beijing East IP Ltd., rejecting a request for invalidation filed by a competitor of the Company.

In October 2013, the CTMO issued notice on an amendment to the 10th Edition of International Classification of Goods and Services. According to the notice, the Tenth Edition, Version 2014 of the Nice Classification will enter into force on January 1, 2014. Parts of the amendment are attached.

Mr. Jason Wang, Partner at Beijing East IP Law Firm, recently published the Article The Conflict of Enterprise Name and Prior Trademark – Analysis on Article 58 of the new Chinese Trademark Law on Issue 12 of the 2013 China Trademark Magazine.