Major acts in recent days (08-06-02)

New IPR aid centers

The State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) recently approved the first 10 IPR assistance centers in Liaoning, Jilin, Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, and Sichuan provinces and Tianjin and Chongqing municipalities.

The new IP offices are intended to help the SIPO strengthen and improve China's IP strategy and enforcement at the provincial and municipal levels and construction of most of them is almost completed.

Brand awareness lagging

The accumulated number of registered trademarks applied for by domestic enterprises in other countries reached 7,100 by the end of last year, while the number of applications by foreign enterprises was 223,000. The disparity shows that the brand awareness of Chinese enterprises lags behind their foreign counterparts, Li Jianchang, director of the trademark office under the State Administration for Industry and Commerce said at a recent forum.

Chairman of All-China Federation of Industry & Commerce Sun Xiaohua agrees. He says, "The development of China's own brands is still weak compared to other countries, which does not fit China's status in global economy and trade. Many enterprises lack the awareness of trademark protection, so Chinese well-known trademarks are often maliciously registered in other countries."

New plant deadline extension

The office of new plant variety protection under the Ministry of Agriculture has announced a two-month extension for applications for new plant varieties in the areas hit by the recent earthquake in Sichuan province. The extension is in case an applicant or holder cannot meet the original deadline due to the disaster.

The applicant or holder should explain his or her circumstances to the new plant office while applying for the extension.

The move is expected to reduce the potential losses for applicants and holders in the quake-struck regions, the office says.

Patent agencies resume work

All patent agencies in Sichuan province hit by the May 12 earthquake, have resumed normal work, says the Sichuan Provincial Intellectual Property Office.

No casualties were reported in the patent agencies, but all were damaged to some degree. According to incomplete statistics, most of them began to accept applications between May 12-16, when a total of more than 60 commissions were received and more than 50 patent applications were handled by the offices.

The patent agencies and agents also participated in earthquake relief donation activities hosted by the Sichuan Intellectual Property Office and communities.

Free IPR courses

People can easily access IPR courses at any time through the Internet at the Jiangsu province city of Wuxi sub-site of China's long-distance IPR education platform (http://wuxi.ciptc.org.cn) which opened recently. All its study resources are open to the public for free.

This year is the promotion year for "building Wuxi by quality and IPR", a campaign to improve the city's enterprises and institutions' IPR abilities. It is aimed at IPR education and training in order to increase competitiveness and encourage independent thought and innovation and to build IPR teams. The Wuxi Intellectual Property Office on the sub-site is the first one at the city level across the nation.

Hi-tech Olympics

The amount of domestic and foreign patent applications related to the Hi-tech Olympics in China has exceeded 320 and the amount of granted patents is more than180, according to information from the China Beijing International Hi-tech Expo and Hi-tech Olympics Exhibition opening on May 21.

Hi-tech Olympics covers scientific and technological innovation in the auto, information and environmental protection fields.

The sponsor of Hi-tech Olympics Exhibition, the Ministry of Science and Technology, proposed the Hi-tech Olympics concept after China won the 2001 competition to host the 2008 Olympic Games.

Montagut wins compensation

The Shanghai Second Intermediate People's Court has ordered 500,000 yuan in compensation be paid by a Shanghai company to a French firm for trademark infringement

The Shanghai Meng Jiao Company was accused of using the Chinese and English trademarks and the flower logo of the French brand Montagut. The company name, Meng Jiao, is similar to the Chinese characters for Montagut.

Bonneterie Cevenole SARL., owner of the Montagut brand, said Meng Jiao had used the clothing company's trademarks and logo on its website, promotional brochures and in its chain stores.

The court ordered the local company to stop using the trademarks and logo and pay 500,000 yuan in compensation to the French company. Bonneterie Cevenole SARL noticed the infringements in late 2005 and filed a lawsuit soon after.

Lawsuit accepted

Beijing SuperStrong Science and Technology Co Ltd has filed a complaint at a local court against American PNY Technologies, Inc, requesting that PNY Technologies immediately stop using the trademark "PNY" and compensate them with 3 million yuan. The Beijing First Intermediate People's Court has accepted the case.

In June 2003, Beijing SuperStrong filed a trademark application to register "PNY" and it was granted on January 21, 2005. However PNY Technologies later filed an application to cancel Beijing SuperStrong's PNY trademark "PNY," because it claims that it had not been used for three consecutive years.

PNY Technologies says it was established in 1985, and used "PNY" as its trade name and on its website. On March 2, 2005, PNY Technologies filed an application to register "PNY" for class 9 goods. At present PNY's application is under trademark review after being rejected by the Trademark Office.

Beijing SuperStrong contends that, in August 2007, PNY Technologies started to use the mark "PNY" on many products without authorization and advertised the products with the mark on its website.