It is learned that ITU has received a total of 6 candidate technique proposals from China, Japan, South Korean, 3GPP (a European Standards Organization) and IEEE (a North American Standards Organization). These proposals cover LTE-Advanced technique and 802.16m technique. The LTE-Advance technique is widely supported by main international communication operating enterprises and manufacturing enterprises, and the 802.16m technique is also accommodated jointly by some chip manufacturers and network product manufacturers such as Intel Corporation. ITU will further analyze, evaluate and test the candidate techniques, and will finally determine on October, 2010 which one becomes 4G international standard.

Zeng Jianqiu, a professor from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, deems that the Chinese self-owned TD-LTE-Advanced technical solution will probably be determined as future 4G international standard because it is excellently incorporated with the existing 4G system and supports simple evolutions of such three 3G techniques as TD-SCDMA, WCDM and CDMA2000.

Regulations on Formulating and Revising National Standards Involving Patent (Interim) (Exposure Draft)

Chapter I. General Provisions

Article 1 With a view to properly dealing with the issues on national standards involving patent, standardizing the way of treating patents during formulating and revising national standards, encouraging independent innovations, promoting proper adoption of new technology in national standards, protecting the rights and interests of the public, patentees and interested parties, and ensuring the effective enforcement of national standards,, these regulations are enacted in accordance with Standardization Law of the People's Republic of China, Patent Law of the People's Republic of China, Measures for Administration of National Standards and other relevant laws and regulations.

Article 2 These Regulations hereof are applicable to the disposal of the issues involving patents during formulating and revising national standards.

Article 3 A patented technique involved in a national standard shall be a technique indispensable to implement such standard and for which there is no material ground for refusing to involve the patented technique.

Chapter II. Disclosure of Patent Information

Article 4 Any Technical Panel for Standardization in specific field (hereinafter “TPS”) or any Organ in Charge of centralized management of that specific field (hereinafter “OIC”) shall disclose any standardization proposal involving patent to the public in a manner familiar to the public.

Article 5 Any organization or individual participating in formulating and revising any national standard shall timely disclose any relevant patent coming to its/his cognizance to the TPS or OIC and provides patent information and relevant evidentiary materials.

Article 6 Any organization or individual not participating in formulating any national standard but coming to cognizance patent information relevant to the national standard may timely inform the TPS or OIC of the patent information in written form at any stage during formulating and revising the national standard.

Article 7 Where any national standard involving patent is to be submitted for approval, the TPS or OIC shall verify the authenticity of the patent information form and relevant evidentiary materials, and submit written materials proving the authenticity and an introduction to the patent to the national administrative department of standardization affairs.

Article 8 Where any patentee and affiliates thereof participating in formulating any national standard fail to disclose relevant information in accordance with the requirements mentioned above, a free license shall be presumed. Where damages are caused to the formulating and implementation of the national standard due to intentional concealment of patent information, they shall bear corresponding legal liabilities.

Chapter III. Statement on Patent Licensing

Article 9 Where any patent is involved in formulating and revising any national standard, the TPS or OIC shall obtain in time from the patentee an irrevocable written license statement for patent implementation.

Such a statement shall include one of the following contents depending on the choice of the patentee:

(1) The patentee agrees to, on the basis of reasonableness and non-discrimination, permit any organization or individual to implement the patent for free in implementing the national standard;

(2) The patentee agrees to, on the basis of reasonableness and non-discrimination, permit any organization or individual to implement the patent with the amount of royalty remarkably lower than the normal royalty;

(3) The patentee does not agree to issue a patent license in accordance with the above two manners.

Where the patentee chooses item (3), the standard shall not include any provision based on the patent.

Article 10 The written license statement for patent implementation shall be included in the materials submitted for approval of any national standard. Any draft national standard involving any patent without a written license statement for patent implementation shall not be approved and promulgated.

Article 11 Where, after a national standard is promulgated, it is found that the standard involves a patent without a license statement for patent implementation, the TPS and OIC shall obtain in time from the patentee a license statement for patent implementation, which shall be reported to the national administrative department of standardization affairs at the same time. Where the patentee refuses to make the license statement for patent implementation mentioned above, the national administrative department of standardization affairs shall revise that standard.

Chapter IV. Special Requirements on Compulsory National Standards Involving Patent

Article 12 A mandatory national standard shall not involve patent in principle.

Article 13 Where it is necessary to involve a patent in a compulsory national standard, the patentee shall issue a license for free, or the national administrative department of standardization affairs shall request relevant departments to negotiate with the patentee on the disposal of the patent. Where the relevant departments and the patentee fail to reach an agreement on the disposal of the patent, the relevant national standard shall not be approved and promulgated, or a compulsory license shall be issued to the patent according to relevant laws and regulations.

Article 14 The national administrative department of standardization affairs shall make a public notice of the full text of any compulsory national standard involving patent and the known patent information before that standard is promulgated, and the period of the public notice shall be 30 days. Any organization or individual may inform in written form the national administrative department of standardization affairs of any other patent information coming to its/his cognizance.

Chapter V. Supplementary Provisions

Article 15 When formulating a national standard by adopting an international standard, relevant information of involved patent shall be discovered all sidedly as much as possible, and the disposal of patent right may be dealt with alike by making reference to the provisions of Chapter II and Chapter III.

Article 16 Applications for patent already received may be treated alike by making reference to the provisions of Chapter II and Chapter III.

Article 17 The implementation of the disclosure of patent information and the license statement for patent implementation shall be carried out as stipulated by the Rules for Disposal of Patents Involved in National Standards.

Article 18 Relevant patent information in the text of national standards shall be compiled in accordance with the provisions of GB/T 1 Directives for Standardization.

Article 19 When formulating and revising trade standards and local standards, involved patents may be treated alike by making reference to these Regulations.

Article 20 These Regulations shall be interpreted by the Standardization Administration of the People’s Republic of China.

Article 21 These Regulations shall enter into force on_____, 200___.

This is the third revision since the China’s Trademark Law was implemented in 1982. The purpose of this revision is to meet requirements of new trends, implement Trademark Strategy and transform “Made in China” to “Created by China” by improving innovation.

Zhao Gang, deputy Director of the China Trademark Office, summarized that the revision is aimed to resolve the existing problems, i.e. the procedure of trademark registration is too complicated, the time from filing to registration is too long, and the punishment on trademark infringement does not catch up with current economic development. The revised Trademark Law will simplify the trademark registration procedure and strengthen trademark protection and administrative supervision. The revised Trademark Law is expected to reach the international advanced standards.

In addition, the revised version will improve protection for geographical indications and strengthen supervision on trademark agencies, in order to provide better service to both domestic and foreign applicants.

Since the revision program was started in 2004, through long-term social research and several academic seminars, the basic requirements and principle of revision on trademark law has been determined. The revision will focus on simplifying and improving the trademark registration procedure, providing convenience to the parties concerned, enhancing the protection for geographical indication, improving supervision on trademark agencies and strengthening regulation and management for well known marks. The revision is aimed to improve the Chinese trademark protection system to international standards.

So far the number of the well-known trademarks recognized through administrative and judicial proceedings has amounted to over 1,000 pieces. The number is on the rise every year. However, in recent years, things happen occasionally, e.g. recognition of well-known trademarks is achieved by fraud, some well-known trademarks are not renowned, and “well-known” products have quality problems. It is necessary to regulate the provisions on recognition and use of Well-Known Trademark in China.

According to Mr. Fu, the government will step up its efforts to strengthen protection to well-known marks and famous marks, and make full use of advantages of trademark administrative enforcement mechanism which has a broad and well-developed network, and is easy and highly efficient. China will continue to cultivate its own international well-known brands and further improve the innovation of local enterprises through well-known and famous trademark system.

This notification requires local authorities to raise public awareness of copyright protection in libraries; in particular, the libraries shall follow the relevant copyright laws and regulations in a strict way. Without authorization of copyright owners, anyone else should not replicate or promulgate the copyrighted works.

Five years ago, Google launched a digital library project, which tries to transform all of the physical books in libraries into electronic form by scanning. Up to now, Google has scanned more than 7 million books, regardless the copyright issue of the scanned works. Thus, it was strongly opposed by a lot of authors and publishers in USA and EU.

Based on the statistics gathered by China Written Works Copyright Society, 17,922 works of 570 China authors are illegally scanned and posted online. So the Google digital library was criticized by China authors. As a result, the experts point out that the notification would possibly cause new trouble to Google.

According to the notice, the GAQSIQ accepts the geographic indication protection application for the Scotch whisky applied by the Scotch Whisky Association by referring to the Provisions on the Protection of Geographic Indication Products, in accordance to the Memorandum of Understanding signed on September 5, 2005 and with the recommendation by the British Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and is going to offer protection according to Chinese related laws and regulations.

It is learnt that, our country has accepted over 10 applications for geographic indication protection after the first geographic indication application applied by French Cognac Office for Cognac in May this year.

Director Mr. Zhen-gang LIU and his group inspected Unitalen’s office area, and spoke highly of the company’s working environment and scale. After that, Unitalen presented working report to the Director and his group. In recent years, Unitalen ranks No. 1 in terms of the numbers of patent filings before the State Intellectual Property Office of the PRC and foreign patent offices on behalf of domestic companies; and Unitalen also ranks No. 1 in the number of trademark applications among domestic trademark agencies for eight straight years. Director Mr. Zhen-gang LIU fully acknowledged the progress made by Unitalen in the intellectual property field. He said that Unitalen is in a leading position among the IP agencies in Beijing to participate government’s projects, organize exhibitions, forums and seminars at home and abroad, and shoulder social responsibilities.

When hearing the Unitalen’s work report, Director Mr. Zhen-gang LIU paid special attention to related topics. He had an in-depth discussion with Unitalen’s management team and other officials to explore new ideas and methods.

Director Zhen-gang LIU encouraged Unitalen, as a big firm with foreign business, to take its advantages in domestic market and make greater progress in promoting Chinese intellectual property culture and in its international business.

Held in Huizhou, this training program attracted around two hundreds participants from more than one hundred companies in the region covering Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Guangzhou, Dongguan, Foshan, etc. Mr. Changming Lu, a senior partner and patent attorney from Unitalen Beijing headquarter explained how to recognize a company’s patent resources and how to plan its patent application strategy from a technical point of view. Mr. Haiding Zhang, the board chairman of Unitalen Guangzhou branch office and a senior expert in IP practices analyzed the situation of foreign companies’ IP market operation and protection in developed countries and provided many valuable and practical advices for participants. Mr. Yuefeng He, the chief of the Statute Section in Policy & Statute Department of the General Administration of Customs has a hot discussion with the participants on the issues of the Customs policy protection and patent management for enterprises.