Consumer Public Interest Lawsuit Seeks 21 Million RMB for Counterfeit Trademark Sales of Starbucks in China

Posted on Categories Case, Trademarks

On November 22, 2020, the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Committee announced they filed a public interest lawsuit on October 26, 2020 against Shuangshan Food (Xiamen) Co., Ltd. for selling counterfeited Starbucks coffee.  Shuangshan was previously subject to criminal prosecution for the sale of the counterfeit coffee amounting to 7 million RMB (~$1 million USD). This is the first consumer civil punitive damages public interest litigation in Jiangsu Province and the demand for compensation of 21 million RMB is the highest …

NavInfo Awarded 64.5 Million RMB in Chinese Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against Baidu

Posted on Categories Case, Copyright

According to a regulatory filing on November 20, 2020 on Juchao Information Network, the statutory information disclosure platform of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court awarded NavInfo Co., Ltd. (北京四维图新科技股份有限公司) 64.5 million RMB (~$9.8 million USD) in a copyright infringement lawsuit involving maps used by the defendants Beijing Baidu Netcom Technology Co., Ltd., Baidu Online Network Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd., and Baidu Cloud Computing Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd.

China and U.S. Rank Even in Wireless Communication Patent Applications Worldwide Through October 2020

Posted on Categories Patents

According to a study released November 19, 2020 by Incopat, China and the U.S. are running even on worldwide wireless communication patent application publications from January to October 2020.  Specifically, in the field of H04W (wireless communication networks), which includes 5G, China and the U.S. both have 32% of the worldwide published patent applications. Japan comes in third with 15%. The top Chinese filer was Huawei with 8,607 published patent applications and the top U.S. filer was Qualcomm with 5,807 …

China’s Second Draft of Amended Criminal Law Retains Trade Secret Provision Targeting Foreigners

Posted on Categories New Law, Rule or Implementing Regulation, Trade Secrets

On October 21, 2020, China’s National People’s Congress released a second draft of the amended criminal law.  Perhaps because of the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) increased enforcement of the Economic Espionage Act (EEA) targeting China as a beneficiary, the Chinese draft retains a provision for foreign-related trade secret theft from the first draft. Specifically, Article 219 will have a new paragraph, “For stealing, spying, buying, or illegally providing trade secrets to foreign institutions, organizations, or personnel, it shall be punished …