“STAY ALERT, STAY CONFIDENT” – IP PROTECTION IN CHINA
Event at the CA ANZ building, Sydney, Australia
On October 13, 2017, HongFangLaw has organized a seminar in Sydney, Australia focusing on introducing the IP practice of China to all the audiences from local Australian business owners, lawyers, legal associates and even law students, with our deep insight on the development of the Trademark Law of China. We are more than honor to have the support from Mr. LU Ping, the Science Attaché of China Consulate in Sydney, and Attaché LU gave the seminar an opening introductory speech about the growing relationship between China and Australia, focusing then on the new developments of regulations and laws directed at a better protection of Australian IP portfolios.
Mr. ZHANG XU and Mr. Eric SU, both partners from HongFangLaw have respectively shared with their profound knowledge and experience to all the people onsite, educating on the new intellectual property development in China.
The seminar this time focused selected topics, including the true power for Intellectual Property in China, Trademark Acquisition & Maintenance, Trademark Enforcement & Protection, and finally IP Related Compliance. Eric has given an overall introduction on the true power of IP in China, and how it differs from the one found in Australia. He then took a deeper dive into explaining the TM Acquisition and maintenance system, and in which way the two systems in China and Australia are different. He took the time to review the latest laws that came in action in the last 10 years, and the growth of TM registration in the last 4 years in china, which reached a stunning figure of 3.691.365 new cases.
Eric focused also on presenting some peculiar cases, especially related on well-known trademarks and sound based trademark. We reviewed the most important rules to take into consideration when talking about trademark in China, like the principle of first-to-file, and many others. Finally, we dealt with the good and bad faith dilemma, which is very prominent as court case in this period, and we explained how to arrange a TM opposition, based on acquired documentation.
After a short networking break, Zhang Xu took the stage to talk about a more serious and challenging matter, the TM enforcement, giving some real cases as example, where we could see how the Police Bureau and the Government took action into cracking down counterfeiters of foreigner goods in China. New laws and regulation have come into effect in the last years, which simplified the work of officials and associates to find and stop infringers in their tracks.
At last, but not least, we dealt with some important IP related compliances that many international companies often forget or don’t know about, such as labeling and advertisement requirement and issues, which more often than know create problem for our clients.
After an interesting Q&A session, we made a final call to action for TM and Patents registration in China, as it is the only way to really protect one own IP portfolio in China, before any problem arises.
Great thanks for the support from our partners at Maxim Legal based in Sydney and also thanks to the support from the Chartered Accountants Association for Australia and New Zealand. HongFangLaw would keep effort in organizing further interesting events for sharing and learning.
If you would like some more personalized review of the news from us, please kindly let us know by writing to: public.relation@hongfanglaw.com . Thank you.
