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No.103¡¡Sep.28, 2014
 
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Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes
 
In this issue
Instructions by Trademark Office on Adjustment of Acceptance and Review Process of Application for Trademark Registration after Implementation of the New Trademark Law
Shanghai to establish Intellectual Property Court during the year and proposes to set up Intellectual Property Exchange
Procuratorial organ will set up a specialized organization to supervise the intellectual property court
Unitalen Attorneys at Law was awarded the title of "2011-2013 Outstanding Law Firm of Chaoyang District, Beijing"
Unitalen won as agent of American ICON company against Jinan Yi Bang Industrial Company in the retrial of invention patent infringement
2014 Unitalen Intellectual Property Forum was Held Successfully
 
 
 
Instructions by Trademark Office on Adjustment of Acceptance and Review Process of Application for Trademark Registration after Implementation of the New Trademark Law

 
The PRC Trademark Law Implementation Regulations implemented on May 1, 2014 made adjustments of acceptance and review process of application for trademark registration, stating in Article 18: "In case that the application for trademark registration has complete procedures, the application documents are filled as required and the fees are paid, the Trademark Office shall accept the application and notify the applicant in writing; otherwise, the Trademark Office shall not accept, notifying the applicant in writing and explain the reasons. For the application with basically complete procedures or basically compliant documents, but requiring correction, the Trademark Office shall notify the applicant for corrections, requiring the correction shall be made in accordance with specified contents within 30 days from the date of receiving the notice and returned to the Trademark Office. The date of application is retained if the correction is made within the prescribed period and returned to the Trademark Office; if no correction is made upon expiration or the correction is not made as required, the Trademark Office shall reject and notify the applicant in writing¡±.

Before May 1, 2014, after reviewing the application documents for trademark registration, the Trademark Office would issue notice of acceptance to the application with complete procedures and documents filled as required; usually the time of issuance was a month or so from the date of receiving the application documents. After May 1, 2014, the Trademark Office made adjustment of the acceptance and review process of application for trademark registration in accordance with the revised Trademark Law Implementing Regulations, putting scanning, input, classification of graphic elements, trademark cards and goods and services, financial reconciliations and other forms of review before issuing the notice of acceptance. If the application needs to be corrected, corrections shall be made as required, and the financial reconciliation succeeds, the notice of acceptance can be issued. Therefore, the issuance of notice of acceptance will take more time than that before the implementation of New Trademark Law Implementing Regulations, and we hope the trademark applicants can understand.

It is hereby declared.

Trademark Office

September 25, 2014

 
 
Shanghai to establish Intellectual Property Court during the year and proposes to set up Intellectual Property Exchange

 

Recently, it was learned from the forum of the tenth anniversary of Shanghai Intellectual Property Strategy Outline Implementation that Shanghai will establish the intellectual property court before the end of the year.

According to reports, the FTA will soon adopt a new range of intellectual property initiatives, including the establishment of intellectual property administration, unified agency of administrative enforcement, to break the institutional barriers of separate management and enforcement by multiple departments; establishing intellectual property court in the FTA to strengthen judicial protection of intellectual property rights within the region. In addition, to promote intellectual and financial integration, and enhance the market value of technological innovation, Shanghai plans to establish intellectual property exchange. Currently, the size, financing and other issues of the exchange are being studied.

 
 
Procuratorial organ will set up a specialized organization to supervise the intellectual property court

 
On September 25, Zheng Xinjian, the Director of Civil and Administrative Procurator's Office of Supreme People's Procuratorate, said, after the intellectual property courts are launched in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the prosecutorial organ would determine the corresponding prosecutor to assume legal responsibilities of supervision.

On August 31 this year, the NPC Standing Committee adopted the decision on the establishment of intellectual property court in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. According to the decision, along with the establishment of specialized courts for intellectual property, Supreme Procuratorate will determine the corresponding procurator to strengthen its legal supervision.

According to the preliminary plan of Supreme Procuratorate, Beijing and Shanghai Municipal People's Procuratorate will determine their branches in the location of intellectual property courts for legal supervision of civil and administrative proceedings in the courts; Guangdong Provincial People's Procuratorate will determine Guangzhou Municipal People's Procuratorate to implement legal supervision of the intellectual property court in Guangzhou.

It is reported that, in the above corresponding prosecutorial authorities, a special organization will be set up, with professional prosecutors to conduct legal supervision of intellectual property litigations. The Supreme People's Procuratorate and procuratorates at higher-level will strengthen the standardization and guidance of legal supervision of intellectual property litigations, actively and steadily carrying out prosecutions for intellectual property.

 
 
Unitalen Attorneys at Law was awarded the title of "2011-2013 Outstanding Law Firm of Chaoyang District, Beijing"

 
In May 2014, Beijing Chaoyang District Lawyer Association launched the contest for "2011-2013 Outstanding Law Firm and Outstanding Lawyer of Chaoyang District, Beijing".

In line with the principle of openness, fairness and justice, the Review Committee of Chaoyang District Lawyer Association has conducted a comprehensive assessment of the application materials, and Unitalen was named "2011-2013 Outstanding Law Firm of Chaoyang District, Beijing", and other 34 law firms were also awarded. In addition, the lawyer Zhou Dandan from Unitalen was awarded the title of "outstanding lawyer" in the assessment.

Chaoyang District Lawyer Association has 723 law firms and more than 11,000 practicing lawyers. With focus on intellectual property law matters and years of development, Unitalen has made a series of remarkable achievements in the field of intellectual property, enjoying the reputation of "intellectual property litigation expert" in the industry. The honor as "Outstanding Law Firm" has become a new starting point for Unitalen, and our lawyers will carefully handle each case for our customers with consistent professional attitude.

 
 
Unitalen won as agent of American ICON company against Jinan Yi Bang Industrial Company in the retrial of invention patent infringement

 
Recently, Sun Changlong and Kong Fanwen from Beijing Unitalen Law Firm won as attorney for American ICON IP INC.(hereinafter referred to as ICON) against Jinan Yi Bang Industrial Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Yi Bang) in the retrial of invention patent infringement.

American ICON HEALTH & FITNESS is one of the world's largest home fitness equipment manufacturers and operators, with headquarters in Logan City, Utah, and its intellectual property business is managed by its subsidiary company ICON IP INC.

ICON company has a patent called "treadmill device with frameless pedal base", no. ZL02808814.X, which protects a kind of "running machine" product with elastic running board.

ICON found that, the defendant in this case- Yi Bang Company produced, sold and offered for sale of treadmill products suspected of infringing the above patents, so it entrusted Unitalen to handle the issues. After investigation and evidence collection, in early 2011 Unitalen, representing the plaintiff, sued Yi Bang and its dealers in Beijing to Beijing Second Intermediate People's Court, petitioning to order the defendant to stop infringement and compensate the plaintiff's economic loss and reasonable litigation expenses.

The Court of First Instance supported the plaintiff's claim, and made the (2011) EZMCZ No. 2919civil judgment, identifying the production, sale and offering for sale of the infringed products by the two defendants have infringed the plaintiff's patent, and ordering the defendant to stop infringement and compensate the plaintiff RMB 530,000 yuan.

The defendant-Yi Bang company refused the first instance verdict and appealed to Beijing Higher Court. The court of second instance believed that, when the patentee claims equivalent infringement, it shall be estopped to include the content, which the patentee has abandoned partial protection scope in the invalidation procedures in the scope of patent protection. And accordingly it believed the allegedly infringing product did not fall in the scope of patent protection, and therefore it revoked the judgment of first instance (2011) GMZZ No. 4312.

After receiving judgment of the second instance, Unitalen¡¯s litigation team led by Li Yongbo conducted careful analysis and discussion of the case, believing that the second trial was wrong in the findings of fact and application of law, and advising the client to apply for retrial. In August 2012, Unitalen, on behalf of ICON, applied to the Supreme Court for retrial. On May 2, 2013, the Supreme Court made (2013) MSZ No. 370 civil decision to hear the case.

On September 16, 2014, the Supreme Court made (2013) MTZ No. 112 civil judgment, finding that the second trial was wrong on the factual finding and applicable law, and entering a judgment: (a) revoking Beijing Higher Court (2011) GMZZ No. 4312 civil judgment, (b) affirming Beijing Second Intermediate People's Court (2011) EZMCZ No. 2919 civil judgment.

In the judgment of retrial, the analysis and comparison method on technical characteristics by the Supreme Court will undoubtedly play an important guiding role for cases in the future: the Supreme Court taking the prospective of connection relationships and functions of the corresponding technical feature-"framework" in the disputed patent, clarified the difference between the "flexible framework" of the allegedly infringing product and the "rigid framework" in the patent background technique, and further through detailed analysis of structure, role and deformation of the "framework", clearly determined that the "flexible framework" of the allegedly infringing product was not actually a frame but a part of pedal base, which was equivalent to the multi-layered structure of the pedal base of the involved patent, thus confirming the corresponding technical feature of the alleged infringing product was the same as the involved patent.

The ruling of Supreme Court reveals that to determine whether two technical features are the same, we cannot just rely on whether the terms or expressions used are the same, but make multi-angle analysis from the structure, connection relationships, function and role embodied by the features to determine whether the two characteristics are actually the same.

 
 
2014 Unitalen Intellectual Property Forum was Held Successfully

 
2014 Unitalen IP Forum was held in Ritan Hotel on September 18, attended by more than 120 people in charge of intellectual property from across hundreds of enterprises.

The forum brought together the Supreme Court judges, senior intellectual property attorneys, well-known academicians as well as senior consultants of intellectual property, and experts from other areas, who had in-depth discussions and exchanges on hot issues of intellectual property rights, such as the latest situation of patent litigation, patent due diligence, related insights of exports patent applications and corporate intellectual property management tools.

The two-day forum, rich in knowledge and involving the latest hot issues of current intellectual property industry, has been widely welcomed by the participants. During the conference, the organizer arranged bus for them to taste Beijing cuisine together, appreciate Beijing culture. And the performance of Beijing traditional crosstalk made exchanges between participants relaxed.

Ten years have passed since the first establishment of Unitalen Intellectual Property Forum by which multiple cooperation with government, courts and top foreign law firms has been carried out to build a platform for corporate information exchange by leveraging multiple resources. Over the years, Unitalen¡¯s charity has also been widely recognized by customers and the industry. Many companies put forward reasonable proposals from their own point of view so that we continue to enrich and improve the content and organization of the forum. We believe that through our efforts, Unitalen Intellectual Property Forum will become better and better. Many thanks to our customers and peers in the industry for the lasting companionship!