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First
Instance Judgment on the “Jinhua Ham” in Shanghai
Zhejiang FoodStuff Co., Ltd indicted Shanghai Taikang
Foodstuff Co., Ltd together with Zhejiang Yongkang Road 4 No. 1 Ham Factory two
years ago, for the infringement upon the right to exclusively use the
registered trademark “Jinhua Ham”. The plaintiff requested an immediate stop of
the infringement and a public apology, meanwhile claimed for the compensation
of RMB50, 000. On August 31, 2005, Shanghai No.2 Intermediate People’s Court
delivered a “not support” verdict on the first instance to Zhejiang FoodStuff
Co., Ltd.
Long in the history, Zhejiang Jinhua, in Southeast China,
has a reputation of ham and its ham becomes worldwide known now. As a result of
historical reasons, Zhejiang FoodStuff Co., Ltd, which is located in Hangzhou
City, becomes the owner of the registered trademark “Jinhua Ham”. The ham,
though produced in Jinhua, has no right to use the trademark “Jinhua Ham”.
There inevitably exist conflicts between registered trademarks and geographical
indications. It is the cause of noisy disputes concerning the right to
exclusively use the “Jinhua Ham”.
September 1st, 2005
Source: Huadong News
Patent Fee for Cloning CD Fixed to 2.5
US Cents
On September 7th, 2005, the delegates of
Chinese CD Corporations had a negotiation with PHILIPS on the patent fee for
cloning CD. Till the next day they finally came to an agreement that Chinese CD
Corporations should pay 2.5 US cents to PHILIPS on each piece of the cloning
CD. The negotiation with PHILIPS went with three stages: the first stage was to
make certain the patent fee, the second stage was to confirm payment means
while the last stage was to deal with the historical problems. At present,
there are two prevailing ways of payment, producer rendering or salesman
rendering. Chinese side prefers to the latter. No matter in which way, the fee
is ultimately paid by producers, but the latter could to some extent lighten
the burden of the whole managing process of the producers. Furthermore, under
the present level of the patent fee, the Chinese CD Corporations will gain no
interest, even to the worse when they produce the cloning CD.
Certainly, PHILIPS inclines to the former way of
payment, for the sake of the timely gathering money, which wipes off the
troubles of contacting with salesman.
September 8th, 2005
Source: Jinghua Times
Zhuhai initiates “Patent
Supermarket”
On September 11, 2005, the first patent supermarket opened
in Zhuhai. Thus, investment in Zhuhai has new ways.
It was said that on the opening day, 26 patentees with
more than 40 patents were attracted. These patents covered the fields of
electrical, mechanics, environmental, medical, and daily facilities, including “Touching
Inductive Keyboard of Computer”, “Human Gene Division Reagent ”, “A Kind of Toilet
Bout Filling Film Incessantly ”, “Splint of Eliminating Snore”, “Electric Toothbrush”,
“A Kind of Environmental Conservation and Energy Economizing Water Feeder ” and
so on. Most of the utility model patents are most advanced in China.
It was known that the individual patent applications
hold 40 percent of the whole of Zhuhai City, extended to more than 500 items.
Whereas the shortage of patent transferring market leads to the low patent
transferring rates. The new established “Patent Supermarket” will be the place directly
facing to individuals, so that patentees could transfer their technologies here
without paying.
September 13th, 2005
Source: Huanan News
Hongdou Vs. Honggen
Three years ago, Hongdou Group found that a locally
registered enterprise was using a trademark “Honggen ” and logo that were
similar to the well-know registered trademark “Hongdou”, and they were also
being used on identical commodities. Therefore, Hongdou Group applied for a
trademark appraisal to the Trademark Office of the Administrative Department
for Industry and Commerce of People’s Republic of China, claimed their right to
exclusively use the trademark. Several days ago, the Trademark Office pointed
out in its official reply that both “Hongdou” and “Honggen” are composed by two
Chinese characters, plus their first characters are totally the same; the
second “gen” is obviously similar to “dou”, it is difficult for common
consumers to distinguish from each other without carefully comparison. The
crucial point is either the designated usages or functions of the trademarks
are basically the same. In conclusion, they belong to the category of identical
or similar trademarks. Ultimately, the Trademark Office ruled that “Honggen”
and its Logo were not authorized to be registered.
September 20th, 2005
Source: Yangtse Evening
MP3.Baidu.Com
Encountering Loss of A Lawsuit
On September 16th, 2005, Beijing Haidian
district People’s Court delivered a first instance verdict on Shanghai Push
Music Co., Ltd (hereafter referred to as “Push”) vs. Beijing Baidu.Com Inc. (hereafter
referred to as “Baidu”), that Baidu lost the lawsuit.
In March this year, Push detected that Baidu was always
providing the download service for 46 songs to the publics without its
permission. Push has the rights of producer of sound recordings of those songs,
so it brought the lawsuit and claimed for an immediate stop of the
infringement.
Baidu alleged that it is a provider of searching engine
service and itself did not provide the download service of the related songs.
After inquisition, the Court deemed that network users
via clicking links on the related web of Baidu to visit the web that have the
related songs. When downloading, there automatically popped-up a download box
on Baidu web, at the same time, the download box indicated that the related MP3
documents were from mp3.baidu.com. Accordingly, the defendant’s action was
beyond its defining providing searching engine service, concluded to be
infringement.
The Court gave its judgment that Baidu stopped to
provide the downloading services of the related songs that Push has the rights
of producer of sound recordings and compensated Push RMB68, 000, each song
counts RMB2, 000.
September
23rd, 2005 Source:
China Intellectual Property News
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