In June 2020, in light of the Black Lives Matter movement, Colgate Palmolive announced they would consider rebranding (“evolve”) Darlie (previously Darkie) toothpaste which is known in Chinese as 黑人牙膏 (Black Person’s Toothpaste). The rebranding looked liked it was going ahead based on Chinese trademark filings made by Colgate affiliate 好维股份有限公司 (Hawley and Hazel (BVI) Co. Ltd.) in June 2020 for 卫觉公式 and HYMULA. However, since then Hawley has continued to file marks for Black Person and variants that many …
China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate Issues 26th Batch of Guiding Cases for Intellectual Property
On February 8, 2021, China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate issued the 26th batch of guiding cases covering intellectual property. This batch covers 5 cases including criminal trademark, copyright and trade secret law. Foreign victims included Starbucks, Cisco, and HP in 2 of the 5 cases. A brief summary of the cases follow. The full text is available here (in Chinese only).
China Issues Draft “Measures Regarding the Regulation of Patent Applications” to Crack Down on ‘Abnormal’ Patent Applications
On February 10, 2021, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) released the Measures on Regulating Patent Applications (Draft for Comment) (关于规范申请专利行为的办法(征求意见稿)). The draft defines abnormal (read junk) patent applications, related behaviors and the penalties for these behaviors. Apparently, CNIPA does not actually want comments because these draft measures were released right before the week-long Chinese New Year holiday and CNIPA is providing a very short period to submit comments – 16 days. These measures and the concurrent elimination of …
China’s Patent Office Releases Draft Measures for Patent Linkage Administrative Adjudication
On February 9, 2021, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) released the Administrative Ruling Measures for the Early Resolution Mechanism for Drug Patent Disputes (Draft for Solicitation of Comments) (药品专利纠纷早期解决机制行政裁决办法（征求意见稿)). This follows on the drafts of the Supreme People’s Court Patent Linkage Litigation Regulations and the joint National Medical Products Administration and CNIPA’s Implementing Measures for Drug Patent Dispute Early Resolution Mechanism issued last year. Patent linkage was introduced in Article 76 of China’s amended Patent Law to take …