On October 21, 2021, the Supreme People’s Court of China submitted a report on the judicial work of the people’s courts on intellectual property rights for deliberation. According to the report, the average annual increase in intellectual property cases was 24.5% from 2013 to 2020, which is 12.8 percentage points higher than the increase in all litigation cases. Specifically, number of first-instance IP cases accepted by courts across China increased from 101,000 in 2013 to 467,000 in 2020.
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Guest Post: Protection of Chinese Equivalents of Foreign Trademarks
This is a guest post by Yan Zhang and Austin Chang of Beijing EastIP. When an overseas brand enters the Chinese market, selecting a Chinese equivalent of the overseas brand is crucial because native Chinese pronounce and remember the Chinese language version much easier than any foreign language version. This is precisely why nearly all famous international brands have and use Chinese equivalent names in China. Literal translation is one of the ways in selecting a Chinese equivalent. For example, …
World Intellectual Property Organization Releases Global Innovation Index 2021 – China Edges Closer to Top 10
On September 20, 2021, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) released the Global Innovation Index 2021. Switzerland, Sweden, U.S., and U.K. continue to lead the innovation ranking, and have all ranked in the top 5 in the past three years. The Republic of Korea joins the top 5 of the GII for the first time in 2021, while four other Asian economies feature in the top 15: Singapore (8), China (12), Japan (13) and Hong Kong, China (14). China moved …
China’s Hainan Province Proposes 1 Million RMB Rewards for Reporting Intellectual Property Infringement
On September 2, 2021, the Hainan Provincial Intellectual Property Office released the draft Interim Measures for Reporting and Rewarding Major Intellectual Property Violations in the Field of Market Supervision in Hainan Province (海南省市场监管领域知识产权重大违法行为举报奖励暂行办法) for comment. The Measures provide rewards of up to 1 million RMB (~$155 thousand USD) for reporting intellectual property infringement including of patents, trademarks, trade secrets, geographical indicators, integrated circuit layouts, etc. The infringement must be serious enough to qualify as a crime or subject to heavy fines.