A “Christmas delight/dessert” in China: Re-announcement of Anti-piracy & Pornography Hotlines

Anti-piracy and Pornography Hotlines Re-announced

The above China IP News was announced on 18.12.2009.

Frankly, I find this re-announcement interesting, amusing and juicy while surfing on this website! It is partly because of the timing of this announcement, i.e. the date of the announcement which is just one week before the Christmas time. It is also partly of the rise of the middle-class who adopts a more Westernized style of consumption pattern.

As it is widely known that Chinese are in the rapid rise of power in the first decade of the 21st century, they have a strong knack in aligning with the cosmopolitan lifestyle. It is essential to emphasis the need for the protection of intellectual property rights.

Even there are no public holidays during Christmas time in China, Chinese (especially citizens in major cities) and especially those returning from overseas (the so-called “sea-turtle” in Chinese) are tend to celebrate the Western festivals. They are willing to spend a considerable amount of money on consumption of gourmet and fancy products with their families, friends, colleagues and business partners. They may, intentionally or accidentally, buy pirate products as Christmas gifts.

Hence, the State Intellectual Property Office (“SIPO”) decided to announce the hotlines so as to remind the general public the importance of respecting intellectual property rights while purchasing the products before Christmas and New Year. It also provides the channel for the businesses of selling the legitimate products to report cases of piracy.

Following the long-standing policy on combating pornography, the SIPO would also stress the necessity for reporting pornography through the re-announcement of hotlines.

Incidentally, when there is “re-announcement” for the reporting of illegal products and any pornographic materials, it is an indication of its arising need and the pursuit of authenticity.
So, it is hoped that with the growth of urban middle-class individuals and DINKS (“Dual Income No Kids) in the PRC, they may want to have a taste of traditional Christmas dessert, such as Christmas pudding or gingerbread-man. They would also acknowledge and be concerned of the protection of intellectual property rights.

Dr Liu Xiaobo - Sentenced for 11 years

Dr Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years of prison terms on 25th December 2009, because he wrote several articles about human rights in China. Please join this facebook group to show your support, or to have a brief understanding of what is going on.

SIPO in 30 years

In marking the 30th anniversary of the establishment of State Intellectual Property Office of PRC, an article in their web site draw one angle of the history in the past 30-years.

The article address the quantity increased in the past 30-years with a chart showing what they called a steady and prosperous growth. The first Patent Law was enacted on 1st April 1985 and basically no much activity between 1985 and 1998, after hitting the milestone of 100,000 annual patent applications, a major turning point happens in 2000-2001 and the number climbed up drastically. Last year (2008), that increased to more than 800,000 patent application in one year. According to the official line, this reflects the success of the patent system in China.

As a matter of fact, on the day that patent law was enacted, SIPO received 3455 patent application in one day, according to official record.

Fifteen years later, the cumulative total of patent applications reached 1,000,000 in January 2000. The second 1 million patent applications hit SIPO on March 2004, 39 months later. The third 1 million patent applications took less than 30 months, the fourth took 18 months, and the fifth took 16 months in March 2009.

Comparing the same time frame between 1985 and 2008, the GDP growth more than 30 times while the annual patent applications growth close to 90 times.

Here is the link to the article in Chinese with the chart on patent application growth.
http://www.sipo.gov.cn/sipo2008/mtjj/2009/200912/t20091210_484908.html

This is a very impressive growth, and it reflects the China enterprises are using patent protection to protect their invention, and at the same time, foreign enterprises really thinks that is important to apply and get patent granted in China. I also understand that the growth reflects in people turn over in some of the agent firms in China.

The Hong Kong Innovation-Knowledge Enterprise Award

Congratulations to one of my clients, who is one of the award-winners of the “Innovation-Knowledge Enterprise Award” which is co-organized by the Hong Kong Productivity Council and Guangdong Provincial Intellectual Property Office since 2004.

This award is targeted with a view to increase the Intellectual Property (“IP”) management capability of Hong Kong and mainland enterprises. When the enterprises are facing the arising challenges from the Pearl River Delta region due to the economic upsurge, this award serves as a tool to upgrade them from Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) to Original Design Manufacturer (ODM) and Original Brand Manufacturer (OBM).

As it is commonly known, or recognized, that there are tremendous infringement products from the mainland China, this award become more important, meaningful and perhaps sarcastic!

My client is a product development and investment company. The main business is to identify product improvement opportunity and invest in the design, whereby intellectual protection is the major vehicle to protect the return on investment.

My client is involved in inventions related to product improvement and new product design. The areas of improvement include improvisation on functionality, durability, cost in production and maintenance. They have the core design and management team resides in Hong Kong and has a manufacturing facility in Dongguan where a team of draftsmen, testing engineers and production workers helps the design, prototyping, testing and pilot run process. With more than 150 workers, the Dongguan factory also produces products that export to North America, Europe and Middle East.

My client has applied and obtained more than 10 patents for design done before 2006. All of these patents are now commercialized and products being sold or licenses granted to US companies. Since 2006, the group has filed more than 15 patent applications per year in the PRC, United States, and European Community. Currently, they own more than 70 patents or patents pending right in these countries/community. Non-exclusive license rights for about one-third of patents pending are granted to companies which expects to market products using these new invention in their respective countries. Of course, we handle most of their intellectual property related work.

Further information about the Award can be found here:

http://www.hkpc.org/html/eng/award_schemes/award_schemes.jsp#awards6

http://www.itc.gov.hk/

http://www.cedb.gov.hk/about/index.htm

Back to the blog

I am back to the blog! Isn’t it funny or ironic?

My blog is 3 years old, it is always here. I remember the time when I created it on 26 December 2006. Yes, the Boxing Day, a warm morning when I woke up after a great meal with a few bottles of wine on Christmas day with my family and friends. As usual, I switched on my computer after two cups of coffee, I decided to create my own blog! Well, being a blogger is a good choice of gift for myself. It may be a bit late as a Christmas gift but just perfect timing as a New Year gift.

Time flies … I am not an active blogger!

It is obvious that I do not spend time on this “gift” as I have been busy in my business. My last article was written in early June 2009, so you may imagine how many phone calls, emails, paperwork I have dealt with and how many meetings, negotiations and trips I have taken during these six months!

From now to the coming Boxing Day, I am sure I would spend more time here as I really want to share with you all my experience and thoughts on patents, trademarks, true or fake products, the news around us in China and the World, and so on.

4 June 1989 Tiananmen Square

It has been 20 years.

Let us have a moment for those who were killed, hurt, and deprived of human rights since then. There are activists still kept in prison because of what happened 20 years ago.

There are many ways to show we are concerned. Here is one of them:
My Square is Tiananmen Square - Solidarity photo action

The Chinese government also shows their concern by shutting down web access to a lot of sites in the past few days, including twitter. People in Southern China also cannot watch Hong Kong TV that they used to watch in the past.

Chinese Bidder on Yves St. Laurent Auction Refuses to Pay $40 Million

I think that caught a lot of attention lately, in particular, the Chinese guy who succeed in bidding the Chinese Bronze Rat Head and Rabbit Head last week at Christie's.

This 'winner' hold a press conference on 2 Mar 2009, proudly saying that he will not pay, and the other spokesperson in the press conference said (in Chinese) "The world has learnt a lesson".

I think we learnt that lesson long time ago and this press conference just reinforce our learning:
We demand money on account for all Chinese customers, no matter they are new or recurring customers. In particular, when it is time for filing of application that we need to pay for government fee, we felt as urgent as the client. That is, if they don't pay us money on account, we will not pay on their behalf for any government fee.

We do understanding inventors / companies do have cash flow problem from time to time, but holding a press conference and say that out loud (and proudly) "... what I want to stress is that I will not pay" is a little bit too much.

See the related news here: http://abcnews.go.com/International/Business/story?id=6987633&page=1

Meeting fellow professional in Facebook

From time to time, I have questions such as trademark registration in Indonesia and Italy. Apart from Google, I am also using facebook to look for fellow professional and groups in other countries. I found that very useful.

Peace in Gaza

In the year of 2009, we wish peace in Gaza and concern about types of weapons used by the invading army.