China News recently reported on new systems put in place by the Chinese courts to increase public awareness of complicated court proceedings and to expedite the resolution of disputes through the courts.
The article also reports some encouraging statistics that reflect on the rule of law in China. It cites a March 2008 State Supreme Court work report that China's courts handled almost 32 million cases from 2003 through 2007. That's up 1.6% over the previous four-year period (1998-2002).
The Shanghai courts saw a much larger increase in their case loads, however, which were up 10% during the same time period. This finding about the Shanghai courts is consistent with observations by my colleagues in the Licensing Executives Society and the American Bar Association's China Committee that courts in certain Chinese cities, Shanghai among them, are becoming more educated as to intellectual property rights and more reliable as fora for the resolution of intellectual property disputes.
To read the China News article, click here. For an excellent list of China resources compiled by the ABA's China Committee, click here.
For more information about doing business in China and with Chinese companies, please contact us at +1.208.939.4472 or info@technologylawgroup.com.
4.20.2008
Doing Business in China? Check Out This Recommended Reading!
Recently, the American Bar Association's China Committee discussed books on China that have been useful to our members and to our respective clients doing business in that country or planning to do so.
With more than 500 attorney members around the world, the China Committee is a joint body of the ABA's International Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Science and Technology practice sections.
The China Committee's recommended reading includes books covering topics ranging from China's place in the global economy to the consumer products market there to histories that elucidate Chinese cultural and business philosophies.
I have gathered these titles together for you here in the new Resources link. You'll find the link on the right side of this page above the blog archive listing. Click here and you'll go to our Amazon store to see all the China titles.
You will also see a collection of the TLG team's favorite resources on entrepreneurship, intellectual property strategy, women in science and technology, and more. Because we support Science Olympiad and other programs to foster children's creativity and natural interest in science and technology, we've even put together a set of excellent chemistry sets, books, and other great products to help Kids Create!
To discuss more about your business activities and plans in China, please contact us at +1.208.939.4472 or info@technologylawgroup.com.
With more than 500 attorney members around the world, the China Committee is a joint body of the ABA's International Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Science and Technology practice sections.
The China Committee's recommended reading includes books covering topics ranging from China's place in the global economy to the consumer products market there to histories that elucidate Chinese cultural and business philosophies.
I have gathered these titles together for you here in the new Resources link. You'll find the link on the right side of this page above the blog archive listing. Click here and you'll go to our Amazon store to see all the China titles.
You will also see a collection of the TLG team's favorite resources on entrepreneurship, intellectual property strategy, women in science and technology, and more. Because we support Science Olympiad and other programs to foster children's creativity and natural interest in science and technology, we've even put together a set of excellent chemistry sets, books, and other great products to help Kids Create!
To discuss more about your business activities and plans in China, please contact us at +1.208.939.4472 or info@technologylawgroup.com.
4.18.2008
Chinese Intellectual Property Cases Online
To improve the rule of law in China and the transparency and availability of court decisions there, the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Division of the Supreme People's Court offers an online resource for obtaining published decisions in intellectual property cases in China.
The Web site is principally in Chinese language. The search engine operates in English and Chinese. One may search by litigant name, court, filing date, case number, and cause of action.
Just enter search terms in English, and the site returns a list of search results in Chinese, but with some English labeling. The decisions are in Chinese, but no worries! We have Chinese linguistics on our team.
The Web site's navigation bar to the left also has English labels for types of actions: trademarks, copyright and related rights, patents, unfair competition, plant varieties, technology contracts, and others.
Among the Others category are cases involving integrated circuit ("IC") design and cases involving discovery and innovation. (RESOURCE NOTE: For a detailed, albeit 2003, analysis of China's IC design protection law, click here.)
Under Article 134 of China's Civil Procedural Law, "The people's court shall publicly pronounce its judgment in all cases, whether publicly tried or not." (RESOURCE NOTE: For the text of this law, click here.) Further, Article 8 of the 1993 Supreme Court's Rules in Court of the People's Court states that "citizens may audit the court session of cases which are publicly tried according to law."
That said, the courts appear to have some discretion regarding publication, having, for example, no time frame within which they must publish their decisions and no requirements as to the methods of such required publication.
For more information, please reach us at +1.208.939.4472 or info@technologylawgroup.com.
The Web site is principally in Chinese language. The search engine operates in English and Chinese. One may search by litigant name, court, filing date, case number, and cause of action.Just enter search terms in English, and the site returns a list of search results in Chinese, but with some English labeling. The decisions are in Chinese, but no worries! We have Chinese linguistics on our team.
The Web site's navigation bar to the left also has English labels for types of actions: trademarks, copyright and related rights, patents, unfair competition, plant varieties, technology contracts, and others.
Among the Others category are cases involving integrated circuit ("IC") design and cases involving discovery and innovation. (RESOURCE NOTE: For a detailed, albeit 2003, analysis of China's IC design protection law, click here.)
Under Article 134 of China's Civil Procedural Law, "The people's court shall publicly pronounce its judgment in all cases, whether publicly tried or not." (RESOURCE NOTE: For the text of this law, click here.) Further, Article 8 of the 1993 Supreme Court's Rules in Court of the People's Court states that "citizens may audit the court session of cases which are publicly tried according to law."
That said, the courts appear to have some discretion regarding publication, having, for example, no time frame within which they must publish their decisions and no requirements as to the methods of such required publication.
For more information, please reach us at +1.208.939.4472 or info@technologylawgroup.com.
4.09.2008
Is Tibet A Country?
Those of us serving on the ABA's China Committee are now discussing the question of Tibet's legal status, particularly whether Tibet is independent or part of China.
For those of you who have been following the compelling stories of political unrest in Tibet and China's intervention there, this post will be particularly interesting.
The term "suzertainty" refers to a principle first seen in feudal law and later used in more modern (late 1800s) positive law in which one country is a vassal state to other. Parts of the Ottoman Empire, e.g., Egypt, Bulgaria, Romania, and others, were organized this way.
The vassal is described as an independent state that gives up some, but not all, of its autonomy to the suzerain state in exchange for certain obligations flowing back to the vassal state.
(RESOURCE NOTE: For an excellent summary of the history of the term "suzertainty" with references, click here.)
Unraveling the legal status of Tibet takes one through the period of British colonialism in the region and later through one or more treaties between Britain and imperial Russian, later cancelled by the Communist government, and through the 1950 invasion by China of Tibet to the present day. A partial timeline of the historical development of Tibet's legal status follows.
One discussion, attributed to Sir Algemon Rumbold, President of the Tibet Society of the United Kingdom from 1977-1988, says that Britain treated Tibet as an independent state from 1910, but stated in 1912 and again 1943 that it acknowledged the suzertainty of China in Tibet, but on the condition that Tibet's autonomy was respected. The latter is cited Memorandum from Sir Anthony Eden to the Chinese Foreign Minister, T.V. Soong, FO371/93001 (May 8, 1943).
Some say that Tibet initially declared independence in 1912, a position apparently agreed by the British government, which treated Tibet as independent from 1910 or from 1912, depending on the commentator. Others say that that 1912 and two subsequent declarations, at least through 1965 or so, did not amount to declarations. See Alfred P. Rubin, Tibet's Declarations of Independence, 60 AM. J. INT'L L. 812-14 (1966).
The 1914 Simla Convention between Great Britain and Tibet established or purported to establish internationally-recognized boundaries, the McMahon Line, for an independent Tibet. China refused that Convention, and Sir Rumbold writes that it was a that point that Tibet repudiated China's suzertainty.
On September 19, 2006, the Declaration of Independence of the Nations of High Asia: Tibet, East Turkistan and Inner Mongolia was made in Washington, D.C. at the Capitol Building.
Although not a thorough analysis of the question of Tibet's legal status, the foregoing indicates that Tibet is indeed a separate country.
For more information on international law, please contact us at +1.208.939.4472 or info@technologylawgroup.com.
For those of you who have been following the compelling stories of political unrest in Tibet and China's intervention there, this post will be particularly interesting.
The term "suzertainty" refers to a principle first seen in feudal law and later used in more modern (late 1800s) positive law in which one country is a vassal state to other. Parts of the Ottoman Empire, e.g., Egypt, Bulgaria, Romania, and others, were organized this way.
The vassal is described as an independent state that gives up some, but not all, of its autonomy to the suzerain state in exchange for certain obligations flowing back to the vassal state.
(RESOURCE NOTE: For an excellent summary of the history of the term "suzertainty" with references, click here.)
Unraveling the legal status of Tibet takes one through the period of British colonialism in the region and later through one or more treaties between Britain and imperial Russian, later cancelled by the Communist government, and through the 1950 invasion by China of Tibet to the present day. A partial timeline of the historical development of Tibet's legal status follows.
One discussion, attributed to Sir Algemon Rumbold, President of the Tibet Society of the United Kingdom from 1977-1988, says that Britain treated Tibet as an independent state from 1910, but stated in 1912 and again 1943 that it acknowledged the suzertainty of China in Tibet, but on the condition that Tibet's autonomy was respected. The latter is cited Memorandum from Sir Anthony Eden to the Chinese Foreign Minister, T.V. Soong, FO371/93001 (May 8, 1943).
Some say that Tibet initially declared independence in 1912, a position apparently agreed by the British government, which treated Tibet as independent from 1910 or from 1912, depending on the commentator. Others say that that 1912 and two subsequent declarations, at least through 1965 or so, did not amount to declarations. See Alfred P. Rubin, Tibet's Declarations of Independence, 60 AM. J. INT'L L. 812-14 (1966).
The 1914 Simla Convention between Great Britain and Tibet established or purported to establish internationally-recognized boundaries, the McMahon Line, for an independent Tibet. China refused that Convention, and Sir Rumbold writes that it was a that point that Tibet repudiated China's suzertainty.
On September 19, 2006, the Declaration of Independence of the Nations of High Asia: Tibet, East Turkistan and Inner Mongolia was made in Washington, D.C. at the Capitol Building.
Although not a thorough analysis of the question of Tibet's legal status, the foregoing indicates that Tibet is indeed a separate country.
For more information on international law, please contact us at +1.208.939.4472 or info@technologylawgroup.com.
3.31.2008
Intellectual Property Registration Still Nascent in China, but Growing
China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) issued a report on March 17, 2008 on the rates of patent and trademark registration there. The report studied a range of companies, including the 300,000 large industrial companies in China that produced some 90% of that country's industrial output in 2006.
Only a minority of these large companies have formalized intellectual property rights, however. Fewer than nine percent (8.7%), or 26,000, applied for patents from 2004 through 2006. Fewer than one-quarter (24.3%), or 73,000, registered their trademarks, although more than one-third (38.4%) registered their own brands. Finally, only about one-fifth (20.7%) had company policies to protect their trade secrets.
This last statistic is interesting. The limited enforceability and enforcement of formalized intellectual property rights in China contribute to the perception of their value as investments for companies. Trade secret policies, however, have relatively little cost associated with their implementation, but high value in terms of preventing proprietary information and know-how from leaking out to competitors.
Only a minority of these large companies have formalized intellectual property rights, however. Fewer than nine percent (8.7%), or 26,000, applied for patents from 2004 through 2006. Fewer than one-quarter (24.3%), or 73,000, registered their trademarks, although more than one-third (38.4%) registered their own brands. Finally, only about one-fifth (20.7%) had company policies to protect their trade secrets.
This last statistic is interesting. The limited enforceability and enforcement of formalized intellectual property rights in China contribute to the perception of their value as investments for companies. Trade secret policies, however, have relatively little cost associated with their implementation, but high value in terms of preventing proprietary information and know-how from leaking out to competitors. Enforceability may be one reason that trade secret policies are so scarce. There is no trade secret law as such in China. Rather, enforcement occurs under contract, employment, and other civil laws, which may or not be recognized by the courts there. A lack of professional training about intellectual property rights and communal cultural perspectives may provide other reasons.
The NBS report also examined patenting practices in a broader range of Chinese companies, including small to medium enterprises, and non-industrial companies. Among this broader range of companies, some twenty-seven percent (27.5%) of domestically-owned companies filed patent applications in 2006. This compares with about twenty-one percent of foreign-invested joint ventures (20.6%) and Hong Kong-, Macau-, and Taiwan-invested companies (20.8%).
Despite the currently low adoption rate for patenting in China, the trend is toward increased patenting. The State Intellectual Property Office earlier reported an impressive seventeen percent (16.9%) increase in the number of registered patents in 2007 over the previous year. In 2007, those registered patents totaled 850,043. For more statistics on patenting in China, please click here.
Intellectual assets are sure to play a increasing role in China's economic might and integration within the World Trade Organization and the global economy. Speaking before the 11th National People's Congress on March 5, 2008, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, pictured above, stated that China will adopt the National IP Strategy and will systematically promote individual innovation.
For more information about international protection for intellectual property rights, please contact us at +1.208.939.4472 or info@technologylawgroup.com.
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