Intellectual Property (“IP”) is a key asset for all businesses. Professional legal knowledge, support and advice on IP protection & strategies is a necessity to protect businesses from losses, such as:
IP protection in China is a longstanding and critical concern for any company (and even individuals) doing businesses with/in China – it is also one of the most important matters that any business needs to consider and prepare in advance. Your businesses’ intellectual creations, such as:
To name a few, are all protected by intellectual property laws and regulations.
As one of our core professional fields, we have rich professional experience in providing a full range and comprehensive legal services in the IP area dealing with a wide range of intellectual property legal affairs, for which we have already received wide recognition. We can provide customized and appropriate IP relevant legal services for your business, such as:
but also provide IP relevant consultation to:
With services such as intellectual property strategy formulation, management system establishment and online monitoring.
It is worth being aware that foreign individuals, foreign enterprises or any other foreign organizations/entitles who do not have its permanent accommodation or place of business in China, shall entrust a qualified law firm or agent in China to deal with IP relevant affairs, such as trademark and patent registration. We always do our best job to help clients avoid potential litigation, capture the full value of their intangible assets and maximize the return on clients’ investment in IP assets.
Real World Example: A Recent Case
Stories of Success
The strategy of corporate intellectual property varies in different development stages of each company. Choosing and setting up a suitable strategy for corporate intellectual property in a timely manner is very serious for a company’s development, which partly determines if a company can obtain best competitive advantages and maximize their market interests, as well as helping the company to build up its unique selling points.
For companies, the most important trait of intellectual property is its exclusivity, which can be understood as its legal monopoly. If the strategies of a company help it legally monopolize its technology, signs and/or packaging etc. the company will be able to obtain much larger profits, beat competitors and maintain competitive advantages simultaneously. For example, patented products can prohibit the imitation and duplication of competitors to the best extent to increase the share of such products in the market. As another example， a detailed trademark research (including category search and cross search before using a new mark) is very important as part of a business’s trademark strategy. This can help a business find out if their new trademark(s) can be used and registered in China before starting its commercial use. In practice, more and more companies realize the importance of “strategy of corporate intellectual property” and benefit a lot.
A Trademark protects signs, symbols, logos, words or sounds that distinguish your products and/or services from those of your competitors.
Since China applies “the first comes” principle for trademark registration, when to registering your trademark is very important. Early registration is always highly recommended! If you fail to register your trademarks timely, you may not be allowed to register your own trademark if any other party applied to register the same (or a very similar) one first.
In addition to trademark registration, we are also very professional in dealing with other relevant legal affairs, including without limitation, trademark revocation, re-examination of rejected trademark application, objection to approved trademark application, litigation, renewal.
According to Trademark Law in China, when a foreigner or foreign company needs to deal with any trademark relevant matters in China, such as trademark registration, it must entrust a qualified trademark agency such as a law firm in China. We are a fully qualified team with diligent and professional IP specialists who work with you directly and efficiently – working with us directly can also save you much costs and time.
We provide you with comprehensive solutions tailored to your specific situations to provide comprehensive, high-quality and efficient protection for your trademarks and related rights and interests. Appointing us for your trademark work gives you access to highly qualified practitioners with extensive experience in both domestic and international trademark matters.
Copyrights mainly protect written or published works such as books, songs, films, web content and artistic works; and stop others from using them without your permission. We have been helping a wide range of businesses manage their copyright portfolios, covering all aspects of intellectual property copyrights. We provide services; including but not limited to; formulating copyright management system of company, enforcing copyright through administrative and judicial channels, and drafting & advising on copyright contracts (transfer, license and pricing for shares). Although you get copyright protection automatically, copyright registration in some circumstances is still a necessity, which can help you better protect your copyright and prevent your works from being copied, giving you strong evidence when you need to claim relevant rights against any infringement. In China, not every work will be protected by Copyright Law, such as works beyond the copyright protection period.
China’s Patent Law does not only deal with the protection of rights over technological inventions (as in the UK), but it also covers utility models and designs (also known as ‘design patents’). Our patent team cover almost all major industrial and technical fields, including without limitation, renewable energy, telecommunication, internet and IT, AI technology, pharmaceuticals and medicals, biotechnology, materials and mechanical engineering.
Our patent team covers a full range of services on patent protection, including without limitation, invention, utility model and design patent (or called Community Design) protection. More specifically, our team can provide clients with patent research (such as existing technology search, clearance search, legal status research and patent history search), watch services (such as competitor’s patent portfolio watch), patent application, re-examination and invalidation, patent validity and infringement, judicial review of administrative decisions in court, and patent annuity and portfolio management, and etc.
A sophisticated and global approach to patent protection is very important to many businesses. In addition to various domestic patent protection schemes, our China patent team can also offer an integrated international protection package. We provide PCT application service so that you can simultaneously seek protection for an invention in many countries by filing one international patent application, although the design patent/community design is not included in PCT.
While providing specialized patent-related legal services, we also provide you with effective solutions for corporate patent management from the perspective of patent management.
Domain name is another unique & exclusive IP right and asset of every business in a global context, while protection of trademarks, patents, etc. is a more regional context. While many businesses use websites to display their products/services, and/or conduct business directly online, there are increasing number of domain name relevant disputes and domain name protection becomes more critical to every business.
No matter you have any dispute with the domain name itself, or any dispute arising from the website content associated with the domain name, our team can provide comprehensive advice and full support. Besides, we can also help clients make complains to approved dispute resolution service providers – this can also be a resort to delete a disputed domain name (esp. if it constitutes serious IP infringement) by such approved dispute resolution center – this is also part of our IP Disputes and Enforcement’s service.
IP monitoring is one of very important solutions to safeguard businesses’ IP rights in China, via which we can help businesses respond to potential/existing IP infringement swiftly and timely and therefore, to avoid losses and/or minimize losses at early stage. Please Contact Us to get more details about how our professional team monitor your IP in China.
Based on the relevant intellectual property Laws and regulations in China, we provide clients with a wide range of legal resolutions and services. We combine this with our expertise in commercial & strategic perspectives relating to their IP licensing & exploitation issues which are most clearly seen in such cases surrounding trademark license, reproduction license for published materials, patented technology license and exploitation, etc. We will advise you in the direction that is essential in the practical commercial markets, as well as help you with (but not limited to) drafting contracts/agreements equal to each subject of rights and obligations, do proper risk assessment and fully assist in negotiations.
Before investing in any other business (such as taking over part of its business or equity acquisition) or setting up a collaboration with a new partner, clearly understanding the business partner(s) is very important and can sometimes be a deciding factor in your investment or collaboration decision. As an integral part of the Legal Due Diligence process, a careful and appropriate IP DD investigation constitutes an essential part of understanding your partner(s) well. IP DD can be done separately and independently owing to your business’s needs.
Our IP DD involves a wide range of aspects, including without limitation:
IP DD when done right can avoid unnecessary pain and expense; for example; Hewlett-Packard lost over 11 Billion Dollars when acquiring Autonomy because of the incomplete Due Diligence.
After our IP DD work, our professional legal team can also help you’re your own specific IP strategies, as well as provide our IP opinions accordingly.
Business secrets in general, is any practice or process of a company that is generally confidential outside of the company. Information considered a business secret, provides the company competitive advantages over its competitors and comes in many forms including but not limited to:
Unfair competition is generally a deceptive or wrongful business practice that economically and strategically harms either consumers or business entities. Common forms of unfair competition include:
To avoid these potential disputes and risks, we will design and complete a comprehensive confidential system for you; as well as prevent and control the risk of infringing or being infringed on the business secrets and avoid unfair competition.
Customs protection of intellectual property (also known as border measures) protects the registered trademark, copyright & patent in China during import & export transaction and enables holders of IP rights to obtain the cooperation of customs administration to intercept infringing goods at the border and to prevent the release of these goods into circulation. We can help you register your IP rights and/or put a record at China Administration of Customs on the protection of IP so that if the customs officers find suspected infringement products, they will be detained. Similarly, if suspected infringement products are suspected of being imported or exported, we are also able to help you make an application to China Administration of Customs to detain the products; preventing the infringing products (i.e. counterfeits) from coming into the market and damaging your business profits and reputation. Knowing Customs rules and regulations on intellectual property can also help you smoothly export products from China to your designated countries. As an example, if the logo/trade mark of your exported products from China is not registered in China and then found to be similar to another registered trademark in the same class, you will not be able to export the same products unless you change its trade mark/logo.
The intellectual property disputes mainly include infringements of your IP rights by third parties or third parties alleging that you have infringed upon their IP rights, which can potentially result in:
Our team has rich experience in assisting clients in dealing with such intellectual property disputes.
There are various ways to resolve a dispute, mainly:
We always try our best to tailor a proper dispute resolution scheme for our clients, to get best result with less cost and time. For example, if the situation suits, we always help organize a mediation to reach a mutually satisfactory solution first which is always relatively cost-effective and less time-consuming.
IP enforcement is also an important process in IP protection, which generally includes administrative enforcement and civil or criminal litigation. When the disputes happen, we will assist our clients to apply to China IP Bureau who have the legal power to stop infringements, issue fines and seize infringing goods. If it is necessary, we can also start a court case on behalf of our client. After winning the lawsuit, enforcement might be another difficult problem in some cases. So, we always try our best to avoid any potential problems and issues in advance. As an example, we can try to locate the most qualified litigant before the litigation starts; we can also apply for property preservation. There are both pros and cons for each different enforcement method. For instance, civil litigation comes at higher price and takes longer time in many cases compared to administrative enforcement. Our professional team can help clients work out the best and most suitable strategies in full consideration of protecting clients’ interests to the largest extent.
The UK government website uses the Hague System for the International Registration of Industrial Designs which allows you to simultaneously apply for a design in many different countries or territories, through a single application to the World Intellectual Property Organization. However, China is not a contracting party of Hague Agreement and as such, design right is protected in another way. The design patent referring to the new design of a product’s shape, pattern (or a combination thereof) as well as the combination of the color, shape or pattern of a product partly protects design right. Beyond design patent, some other design right can be protected by copyright. We can provide specific consultation and services according to each client’s specific situation.
In a word, if you have any other IP relevant matter which is not specifically mentioned above, please Contact us and we will get back to you timely.