Fu Shuangjian said, in order to stimulate innovation and promote the consecutive growth of trademark registration, the SAIC established long-term effective mechanism of trademark examination and review both on quality and quantity so as to control the pendency of trademark examination in ten months and the pendency of trademark review in 18 months. At the same time online application will be enhanced so that the online application rate can reach over 90%.

In 2010, China had 1928 applications of international trademark registration in total, ranking at the seventh of the world.

Furthermore, China had topped the list of designated countries of international trademark registration for consecutive six years.

Antitrust Law is the fundamental law to prevent antitrust activities, protect market competition and maintain market order, which is called as “Constitutional Law of Market”. Since the antitrust law is implemented, the people’s courts accepted a group of monopoly civil cases. The statistical results of the Supreme Court indicate that from August 1 2008 to the end of 2010 local courts accepted 43 antitrust civil cases of first instance and adjudicated 29 cases.

The relevant leaders of the Tribunal of Intellectual Property of the Supreme People’s Court of PRC introduced that for the professional nature of antitrust civil cases, some regulations of antitrust law have strong nature of principle and abstract, the articles relating to the operation of the people’s courts are relatively simple, therefore, the people’s courts encountered many new, difficult and complicated problems in the trials of antitrust civil cases. It is critical that these problems should be uniformly acknowledged and properly solved by judicial interpretation. The Tribunal of Intellectual Property of the Supreme People’s Court of PRC initiated the investigation and preparation work of judicial interpretation of civil procedure in 2009. The draft for opinions is formed after two years of conception, many investigations and researches and repeated revisions.

The draft for opinions regulated the problems such as jurisdiction, parties, litigation methods, evidences and burden of proof, undertaking of civil responsibilities, limitation of action, etc according to the antitrust law, general principles of civil law, law of civil procedure, contract law, tort law, etc, and constructed the fundamental structure and detailed rules of civil procedures of antitrust (20 articles in total).

Relevant leading officials of the Tribunal of Intellectual Property said that the persons of all the circles may propose detailed revision opinions and suggestions on the draft by written mails or online opinions. The feedback for relevant opinions and suggestions will expire on June 1, 2011.

Xi Xiao Ming, the vice president of the Supreme People’s Court of PRC, pointed out that with the rapid development of Chinese social economy and the consecutive adjustment of social interests pattern, characters such as complication of interest claims, diversification of dispute parties, complex of conflicts, etc. emerged in the intellectual property cases heard and accepted by the people's courts in recent years. The memorandum is concluded in order to take advantage of intermediation function of industry associations in handling the disputes of intellectual property, promote mutual coordination, cooperation and connection of litigation intermediation and industry intermediation so as to provide concerning parties with more options to solve disputes, maintain harmony and stability of society, and promote healthy and rapid development of economic society.

Kong Xiangjun introduced that the problems of copyright protection under internet environment are the hot issues in the field of Chinese intellectual property in recent years. At present, the laws in such field are in the process of gradual improvement. The providers of internet service must be liable for legal responsibilities for infringement. At the same time, laws will not interfere in the healthy development of internet service providers. As long as the services modes are in conformity with exemption conditions regulated in laws, the providers can practice freely under the so-called “Safe Harbor Rule” (free practice). The internet service providers are only subject to legal responsibilities when certain preconditions are satisfied. The Supreme People’s Court will draft judicial interpretation to further regulate these issues.

Note:

“Safe Harbor Rule” means that for infringement of copyright when ISP (Internet Service Provider) only provides space service rather than page design, ISP is obligated to delete the page upon infringement notification. Otherwise, it will be considered as infringement. If the content of infringement is not stored in the server of ISP and ISP is not informed of what shall be deleted, ISP will not undertake liability for infringement.

“Red Flag Rule” is the exceptional application of “Safe Harbor Rule”, which means that if the right to network dissemination of information is infringed obviously just like a flying red flag, ISP can not pretend not seeing it or evade liability ignorance for not knowing the reason of infringement. In this case, if the link is not removed and deleted, we shall hold that the link setter knows the third party is infringing copyright even if the right holder gives no notice.

3M Company and its trademark “3M” have high fame and reputation in relevant public. 3M Company found that the defendant used the trademark of “3M” on insulating tapes and other products produced and sold by the defendant without approval of 3M Company. The commercial activities of the defendant constituted the use of the same registered trademark with that of 3M Company on the same or similar products, which infringed the exclusive dright of trademark of 3M. The plaintiff 3M Company brought a suit to Xingtai Intermediate People's Court to request the court to order the defendant to stop the infringement of exclusive right of the registered trademark “3M” under Reg. No. 884963, and compensate the plaintiff for economic losses resulting from the infringement.

At 10 a.m. on April 27, Hong Feng accompanied by Wang Hong, general director of Beijing Intellectual Property Office, Cheng Lianyuan, governor of Chaoyang District, Yan Jun, deputy governor of Chaoyang District, Zhou Yan, deputy director of Beijing Intellectual Property Office, Fu Xiaohui, deputy director of Beijing Intellectual Property Office, came to the headquarters of Unitalen. The president Yu Zehui, deputy president Li Lei and director Liang Yan of Unitalen accompanied them for investigation and research, and made their reports.

Pleasant working reports made the bright atmosphere into the course of visit. With the company of director Yu, the group led by Hong Feng visited the office areas of Unitalen at the 7th and 8th floor of SciTech Place. The director Yu made detailed introductions on the departments and working procedures and functions of Unitalen in turn.

After the visit Hong Feng had a conversation with president Yu on the development of agency industry. With sincere words and earnest wishes the mayor enquired what hopes and requests Unitalen would address to Beijing municipal government and Beijing Intellectual Property Office in the future work of intellectual property. The president Yu expressed that Unitalen will make efforts to contribute more for the development of intellectual property in Beijing.

Since founded in 1995, Unitalen has developed into an intellectual property firm with more than 800 employees and 19 branches across the country. In recent years, Unitalen makes constant progresses and ranks one of leading law firms in the patent and trademark agencies in China, and achieves amazing performance in foreign-related business. With the business development, Unitalen paid more attentions to the education of talents and undertaking of social responsibilities. At present Unitalen and all the employees donated 750,000 RMB and 6 hope schools.

The untiring efforts of Unitalen obtained the acknowledgements of all levels of leaders. In recent years, the leaders of Municipal Government of Beijing, the People's Congress Council of Beijing, Beijing Intellectual Property Office visited Unitalen for investigation and research, affirmed the achievements of Unitalen, and proposed higher requirements to the development of Unitalen. Unitalen will make contributions to the economic development of Capital by untiring efforts.