Posts Tagged: "China"

On April 29, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) released its 2020 Special 301 Report on Intellectual Property Protection and its 2019 Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy. The Report identifies countries and IP-related market access barriers and steps necessary to address those barriers. Section I of the Report highlights “Developments in Intellectual Property Rights Protection, Enforcement, and Related Market Access” and Section II is a Priority Watch List including country reports for countries where particular problems exist with respect to IP protection, enforcement, or market access. The Review identifies illustrative examples of online and physical markets that are alleged to have contributed to substantial trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy activities around the world.

On April 20, international IP firm Rouse announced the positive results of a patent infringement case brought in Chinese courts on behalf of Spin Master, a Canadian children’s toy and entertainment firm. The decision from the Suzhou Intermediate People’s Court  found that defendant Guangzhou Lingdong Creative Culture Technology’s line of accused “Eonster Hunter” products infringed upon Spin Master patent claims covering the company’s line of Bakugan rollable transforming toys. The court awarded damages of 15 million RMB ($2.2 million USD), the largest damages award ever awarded by a Chinese court to a foreign patent owner.

Having attained the title of the world’s second-largest economy, along with a constant influx of innovative companies and massive breakthroughs in digital development, China – often referred to by natives as “Zhongguo” – indubitably ranks among the strongest global tech leaders. While China has lately found itself in arduous times dealing with the dangerous COVID-19 virus, the country’s determination for progress surely hasn’t faltered. Such determination can deliver various results in various forms, and, considering China’s increasing size and global power, protecting intellectual property rights is one of those progressive outcomes.

Open innovation is a key ingredient to the development of valuable intellectual property. Research institutions, universities, and private businesses work in close collaboration with one another, sharing confidential business information, processes, and trade secrets in order to create content. But while open innovation is a boon to creativity it is also a vulnerable entry point for bad actors to exploit the open and collaborative mindset of research-focused institutions (like universities) or the faith in contractual confidentiality obligations that many companies rely upon to conduct business. Several recent U.S. government findings have placed the blame for some of the most significant threats to domestic intellectual property at bad actors in the People’s Republic of China. A report by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer found that Chinese sponsorship of hacking into American businesses and commercial networks has been taking place for more than a decade and posed a significant threat to our nation’s economic prosperity and competitiveness.

Underscoring the seriousness of the threat posed by the Chinese government’s campaign to obtain results of U.S. publicly funded research, the Board of Directors at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida announced that its President and CEO, Dr. Alan List, along with center director, Timothy Sellers, suddenly resigned after an internal review found they had violated conflict of interest rules regarding their relationships with China. Four researchers also abruptly left.  The actions came after the Moffitt Center conducted an internal review of collaborations between its employees and Chinese institutions as a result of warnings from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to its grant recipients about foreign attempts to influence or compromise their research. 

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Federal Circuit issues precedential decisions regarding its authority to remand to the PTAB, patent prosecution history estoppel and expert testimony on motivation to combine for obviousness findings; China nominates its choice for WIPO Director while pledging to reach “social satisfaction” on IP protections by 2025; INTA announces Ayala Deutsch as the organization’s new president; the USPTO seeks public comments on information collection related to national security concerns; the TTAB applies Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to discovery requests; Hewlett Packard shares drop after quarterly revenues fall short of analyst expectations; and the PTAB allows additional briefing in a case after the possibility of Administrative Procedure Act violations were raised by a patent owner.

This year has included many twists and turns for IP stakeholders, particularly on the patent side. Most recently, the Federal Circuit’s decision in Arthrex has called into question the constitutionality of Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions, and perhaps the Board itself. Elsewhere, Congress has been—unsuccessfully—attempting to step in and clarify U.S. patent law since early in the year, while the courts have continued to muddy the waters of patent eligibility law. The Federal Trade Commission’s case against Qualcomm, and Judge Lucy Koh’s decision in the case, have further called into question the United States’ ability to compete on the innovation front going forward. And yet, there have been some wins in other areas this year, including at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and there remain many reasons to be hopeful about the year ahead. IPWatchdog asked some IP experts to share what they have to be thankful for on the IP front this Thanksgiving, despite all the uncertainty. Hopefully, as those of you who celebrate the holiday enjoy your Thanksgiving dinners, these sentiments will inspire you to be thankful too.

One of the few areas of bipartisan agreement in Washington is that it’s time to respond to Chinese economic and military aggression. The need is underscored by a sobering report from the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations titled “Threats to the U.S. Research Enterprise: China’s Talent Recruitment Plans.” The report documents how China exploits our culture encouraging the open exchange of science in order to achieve their commercial and military objectives. In its editorial, “China’s Bid on American Science,” The Wall Street Journal aptly summarizes the report:  “It found the U.S. government is funding research for hundreds of scientists at American universities and labs who are effectively under contract to turn over their findings to China.” No nation can allow others to steal its cutting-edge technologies. While we must effectively respond to China and others looking to do us harm, we must avoid inadvertently undermining the policies which made us the leader in turning government funded R&D into highly innovative products. Unfortunately, an initial agency response is not reassuring on that score.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issues an updated AIA Trial Practice Guide following SAS Institute v. Iancu; the AM-FM Act is introduced into Congress to update copyright law for terrestrial radio stations; VoIP-Pal.com defeats remaining IPRs challenging its patents at the institution phase; the Copyright Royalty Board announces cost of living adjustments in certain royalty rates; a Senate report shows that U.S. law enforcement didn’t adequately respond to Chinese IP theft for 20 years; China outpaces the rest of the world in terms of blockchain patent filing activities; and Apple joins Intel’s antitrust actions against Fortress Investment Group’s patent assertions.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Federal Circuit strikes down a district court’s finding of design patent infringement on summary judgment; the USPTO advises trademark attorneys to monitor filings to prevent against the unauthorized use of their names; the U.S. Copyright Office issues final rules eliminating options for physical material submissions for newspaper and serial registrations; the U.S. Supreme Court will take up Booking.com’s appeal of the rejection of its trademark application by the USPTO; AG Barr supports the FCC’s plan to restrict Huawei and ZTE equipment purchases through the Universal Service Fund; Nirvana’s copyright case against Marc Jacobs moves past a motion to dismiss; Biogen loses $3 billion in market value after PTAB hearing; and Amazon seeks an injunction against a patent owner asserting infringement claims against Amazon Fire product retailers.

This week in our nation’s capital, the U.S. Senate is the lone house of Congress that will host hearings on tech and innovation topics. On Tuesday, Senate subcommittees will explore national security concerns related to big tech use of user data along with NASA’s efforts to improve the STEM workforce. On Wednesday, a few legislative hearings will commence to look at bills related to government AI, cybersecurity and geothermal innovation, among other tech subjects. Elsewhere in D.C., the Center for International and Strategic Studies explores the future of the electrical grid and China’s efforts towards techno-governance.

Despite the tough talk in Washington D.C., the ability to expand your business internationally to countries such as China is exciting. But what are the steps? How do you do it and what are the issues? Some of the most common starting points include contracting an advertisement agency to run a $2 million marketing campaign on WeChat, opening an online store at JD or TMALL, and/or finding a retailer/distributor to sell your products in exchange for a percentage of each sale. But here’s the main question: What if your trademark is not registered in China?

This week in Other Barks & Bites: new patent collective for video technology launched; inventor rally to be held during live IPR hearing at AIPLA meeting; the White House indicates that the first phase of the U.S.-China trade deal will focus on IP; the USPTO shifts burden of proving patentability in PTAB motions to amend to the petitioner after Aqua Products; the House of Representatives passes the CASE Act in a 410-6 vote; the EU invalidates the three-dimensional trademark to the Rubik’s Cube; Power Integrations settles its patent infringement litigation against ON Semiconductor; Intel files an antitrust suit against SoftBank over patent acquisition and assertion activities; Amazon.com posts its first year-over-year earnings loss in more than two years; and the Federal Circuit overturns Google’s challenge to a Philips patent on appeal from the PTAB.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: US Inventor will host an inventor rally during AIPLA’s Annual Meeting to protest the PTAB; the Federal Circuit vacates dismissal of infringement case against Sirius XM; the USPTO updates subject matter patent eligibility guidelines, changes TEAS access, and seeks participants for a beta release of the Patent Center; WIPO reports that China received half of all patent application filings in 2018 while the United States saw its first patent filing decline in a decade; Google files a supplemental brief at the Supreme Court in its case against Oracle; Katy Perry files a motion to overturn the “Dark Horse” copyright verdict against her; the FCC approves the merger between mobile wireless firms T-Mobile and Sprint; and U.S. Customs proposes rulemaking to improve its detention of copyright-violating goods imported at the U.S. border.

Here we go again! Another day, another ridiculous attack on the U.S. patent system. This time the attack comes from the R Street Institute, who claims that patents are too strong and are inhibiting American companies from achieving success in the race for leadership in the 5G marketplace and continued leadership in Artificial Intelligence (AI). R Street will hold a panel discussion on their wildly outlandish theory, for which they can’t possibly have any factual support, on Tuesday, October 15, in the Capitol Visitor Center. In the announcement they claim that patents are inhibiting American companies because Chinese telecommunications company, Huawei, asserted more than 200 patents against Verizon Communications earlier this year. Therefore—and ipso facto—patents are too strong and American companies are suffering. There may be legitimate security concerns around Huawei’s infrastructure, but to suggest that the company’s patents are at the root of these threats is in a word—Absurd!