Along with the improvement of China’s IP system, China-EU patent filing systems are aligned with each other more and more, accordingly the patent filings submitted to both parties by the inventors and innovative businesses from both China and Europe have been increasing at a remarkable rate. From 2005 to 2014, EPO has received 10 times of the patent filing from China; and in 2014, China’s filing takes up 9% of the total 270,000 cases and ranked the 4th in the amount. For the same year, SIPO had received totally 928,000 patent filings including 127,000 overseas filings, 28% of which comes from EPO’s member countries and ranked 2nd in the filing amount.

SIPO and EPO will further strengthen their strategic partnership for cooperation in more areas at deeper levels, so as to promote the reform and development of the global patent system.

The declaration emphasizes the establishment of high level security dialogue system, so as to prevent and attack organized crimes, internet crimes and illegal immigrants; and not to be engaged in conducting or supporting Internet IP theft and trade secrets thefts to gain competitive advantages.

According to NCPC，in 2013, copyright registrations，including works registrations, software registrations, copyright pledge registrations, have reached one million milestone. After then, copyright registrations in China have grown steadily. During 2011 and 2014, 2.8301 million copyright registrations were handled by NCPC, up 47.6% than the 11th “five-year plan” period. In the first ten months this year, 689,700 copyright registrations have been filed, among which, 191,900 are software, 328 are copyright pledges. Up to now, copyright registrations have reached 882,000 in total, keeping fast growth trend.　

It is worth noting that, with the formation and development of national copyright service mechanism as well as the progress of copyright pilot project, the copyright industry has developed as a whole. According to a research by Chinese Academy of Press and Publication, copyright industry is now contributing 6.87% of China’s GDP.（Source：China Intellectual Property News）

At the festival’s award ceremony on the night of October 16th with 1,200 guests from famous companies, national IP offices and governments, Unitalen received “Contribution to the Festival” and “2015 Outstanding Trademark Agency” awards.

On October 18, at the China Trademark Outstanding Cases Study Forum, Unitalen’s “超爽” (meaning: super cool) trademark invalidation case was enlisted as one of the 22 outstanding cases and received the “2014-2015 Outstanding Trademark Prosecution Case” award. On the same day afternoon, Unitalen Trademark Salon was held at Hainan International Convention Center to host over 200 guests from businesses, IP offices, governments and associations. At the Salon, Unitalen shared an original micro-movie, which was made with modified Unitalen case examples and cast crew of Unitalen staff, to present a new trend of infringement acts observed to the audience. Mr. Mang yu, China Mobile Communications Corporation Legal Affairs General Manager and Ms. Xiaoyan Pan, Beijing Zhiguo Technology Co. co-founder, have also had a very engaged discussion on Internet marketing issues surrounding IP rights agency and the new business modes presented in the new digital environment.

In the over 3 hours’ lecture, Yazhou Zhang had introduced various legal issues involved with trade secret rights determination, affirmation and granting of trademark rights and copyright determination in Mainland China, along with 14 concurrent typical IP rights cases to share for illustration.

The “China Mainland IP Course” has been well received by Taiwan companies’ legal counsels as it covers the practical operations in IP right determination, risk prevention and infringement litigation fields.

In this case, Unitalen represents China Alcoholic Drinks Association (the petitioner) to file an invalidation against Asahi Group Holding’s “超爽” trademark, for the reason that the words used in this mark have been widely adopted to describe beer’s taste in the industry since mid-90s. The petitioner believes the mark should be treated as a common descriptive expression to describe the product’s trait and feel instead of as a trademark with distinctiveness requirement, therefore Asahi’s “超爽” trademark, which was registered back in 1997, should be invalidated according to the Subparagraph 2 of Article 10 of the pre-modified Trademark Law. Asahi Group argues the word mark was originally created, neither a common name adopted by beer industry nor a descriptive wording to describe beer’s taste according to China’s national standards, therefore the mark should remain registered.

In the adjudication made by Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (TRAB), , when used on beer products, “超爽” (super cool) can be literally conceived of as description of a beer’s taste, style of feel by consumers, so that it can’t be treated as a trademark to distinguish product source and it lacks of distinctiveness. Meanwhile Asahi Group’s evidences can’t prove the disputed mark has established distinctiveness through use over years. Therefore, the mark is in violation of the Subparagraph 1(2) of Article 11 of the pre-modified Trademark Law and thus invalidated immediately.

Insights: This is a typical case of invalidation due to adoption of descriptive wordings, to which the Subparagraph 1(2) of Article 11 of the pre-modified Trademark Law applies. By the time when “超爽” mark was registered back in 1997, this wording was not yet widely adopted by the industry to describe beer’s taste and feel, so it was approved with registration. However, with the economic environment evolves and trademark owner’s neglegence in enforcing its exclusive trademark right, this wording have become a commonly used expression to describe beer product to the public. TRAB reviewed this case taking into account of the economy development and law regulations to facilitate the industry healthy growth. Businesses should be reminded to keep substantial evidences of trademark uses and take trademark right enforcement actions in proactive ways if needed, so as to avoid their own marks getting diluted into a commonly used descriptive wording or a wording without distinctiveness.