Posts Tagged: "joint venture"

Court Throws Out Trade Secrets Lawsuit Filed Against IBM China

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York last week dismissed a trade secrets lawsuit against International Business Machines Corp (IBM) and IBM China by Beijing Neu Cloud Oriental System Technology Co. The Chinese firm alleged that IBM stole trade secrets from its joint venture in order to sell IBM products to the Chinese market. IBM China and Beijing Teamsun Technology Co. originally formed Beijing Neu Cloud in 2014 as a joint venture to distribute IBM technology in China. But in a 2021 complaint, Beijing Neu Cloud alleged that IBM induced “Neu Cloud and its majority owner through later-breached contracts to expend resources and provide IBM with access to sensitive, confidential customer information, which IBM then secretly used to create competing ventures in China.”

Made in China 2025 Initiative at Center of Growing IP Tensions Between United States and China

A high ranking Chinese official has announced that the Chinese government rejected a request from the United States to end its subsidization of industries identified by the Made in China 2025 initiative. These key industry sectors are areas where technological development is very important and as such, they’ve been at the center of allegations over the forced transfer of patented technologies to Chinese domestic firms as well as outright theft of trade secrets. The Chinese government has responded to concerns over the Made in China initiative with one senior economic official defending the program as open to foreign and private companies according to a report by Hong Kong’s English daily The Standard.

Letter to President Trump on China IP Probe is Latest Sign of Conservative Support for Private IP Rights

A group of 16 leaders from politically conservative institutions sent a letter addressed to President Donald Trump lauding the Trump Administration’s decision last summer to initiate an investigation into Chinese trade practices regarding intellectual property. The investigation, authorized under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, was aimed at identifying instances where U.S. technologies have been forcibly transferred to Chinese entities as a cost of entering the Chinese domestic market as a foreign entity… The recent letter to President Trump from conservative leaders is the latest indication that right-leaning institutions and think tanks have been more engaged with the debate surrounding the current U.S. intellectual property system.

Trump Administration opens probe into alleged Chinese theft of U.S. intellectual property

President Donald Trump has signed a memo at the White House which authorized the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to make an inquiry into the alleged theft of American intellectual property which is believed to be aided by the Chinese federal government. Although there are concerns that the statement could increase tensions with China just as the U.S. government is seeking more cooperation from China on issues surrounding North Korea, the recent Trump memo comes in response to the $600 billion American intellectual property owners lose each year, a majority of which is due to Chinese tech transfer policies.

Are Your Corporate Transactional Attorneys Harming Your Future IP Strategy?

Entering into a corporate transaction without a careful review of the intellectual property (IP) involved can have negative consequences on an enterprise’s future IP strategy. This is especially true when IP owners do not adequately supervise the corporate attorneys who are preparing the “customary” documents for a merger, acquisition, joint venture formation, equity investment, bridge loan or any other type…

Ethical Issues: Staying in the Frying Pan and out of the Fire

In the situation where there is a joint research collaboration everything is fine, people are happy and hope springs eternal right up until that moment when everything falls apart. Then you have issues associated with a law firm representing inventors of a joint collaboration might be conflicted out of the representation altogether because downstream patent applications filed by one or more of the collaborators creates a situation where the collaborators no longer have jointly aligned interests, perhaps as the result of double patenting issues. Ware explained several cases arising out of a common set of facts whereby multiple joint collaborators were not consulted on the filing of a joint application (or at least not enough to their liking), which created a double patenting issue for an after filed application. The law firm representing the collective was sued for malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty; the case settled.