Since the reform and opening-up in 1978, China has seen huge increase of foreign direct investment. More and more foreign companies have set up their R&D centers in China, hence making more and more invention-creations therein.

As a famous luxury hotel band around the world, the RITZ-CARLTON mark owned by Ritz-Carlton hotel was recognized by China court recently. Both the trial court (Beijing First Intermediate Court) and the appellate court (Beijing High Court) overruled the decision of the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (TRAB), and recognized the RITZ-CARLTON mark on hotel services and restaurant services as a well-known mark.

China is becoming an arena of significant importance where companies are taking advantage of patent portfolios against competitors. According to “2012 Intellectual Property Rights Protection in China” issued by State Intellectual Property Office of China, in 2012, local people’s courts around China accepted 9,680 patent civil cases, with year-on-year increase of 23.80%.

This “Guidance on Hearing Rewards or Remunerations Disputes of Service Invention Made by an Employee-Inventor or Designer” was promulgated by IP tribunal of Shanghai High People’s Court in June, 2013.

On August 30, 2013, China National People’s Congress enacted the amended the Chinese Trademark Law, and the new Chinese Trademark Law shall come into effect as of May 1, 2014. The current Chinese Trademark Law was enacted in 1982, and amended in 1993 and 2001 respectively. In December 2012, June 2013 and August 2013 respectively, the National People’s Congress has reviewed the draft amendments of the Chinese Trademark Law three times. We have sorted out the key amendments of new Chinese Trademark Law. Please see below the brief.

The Supreme Court held that “as long as the content inferred directly and unambiguously from the original disclosure is obvious to the person skilled in the art, such content belongs to the original disclosure of the filing document under Article 33 of the Chinese Patent Law.”

The proposed 4th amendment aims to strengthen the protection of patent rights, which is a good news to applicants.
However, instead of improving current patent enforcement related proceedings via judicial route, the current draft tends to achieve the above goal via administrative route by granting more power to the administrative organ (local patent bureau), which causes concerns from overseas clients, and judicial system oppositions.

Foreign applicants are very interested in how to claim priority when they want to file a Chinese design application. We will introduce some relevant issues about foreign priority.

China has overtaken America again. Its patent office received more applications than any other country’s in 2011. (The numbers were released in December.) But look closer, and the picture is murkier.

Business method application cannot be granted a patent right before the SIPO, unless you are very careful at the very beginning of drafting an application, fully understand the special tactics during prosecution of the application, and foresee the direction SIPO is heading regarding examination of a business method application.