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Project Administrator

Patent

Zhuhai CosMX Lost and Ruled to Pay Damages of About $4.35 Million

-Large stock and low production pull financing and expanding manufacturing into a dilemma

Two patent disputes between Zhuhai CosMX and ATL came to a close recently.

The announcement of Zhuhai CosMX disclosed that the case of ATL suing CosMX over suspected patent infringement was closed by voluntary withdrawal; in the other litigation case, the first instance of the court ruled CosMX to stop manufacturing and selling the cell that infringed the plaintiff’s patent and compensate ATL and CATL for economic loses and other damages a total about $4.35 million. (Apr. 10^th, finance.sina.com)

Trademark

Police Cracked a Major Cases of Producing and Selling Counterfeiting Trademark Signs Involving over $21.7 Million

The police of Cangnan County, Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, recently cracked a criminal gang that produced and sold fake registered trademarks, seizing more than 3 million pieces of packaging materials like boxes, anti-counterfeiting marks, bottle caps of several well-known Chinese liquor brands, involving a total amount of more than $21.7 million and arresting more than 20 suspects.

The criminal gang is a professional counterfeit maker and obvious regional crime with a clear division of labor at different levels. The suspects purchased raw materials, set up dens in many places, and made full sets, forming a complete criminal industrial chain integrating purchase, production, storage, and distribution. The sales network of the products involved covers more than 20 provinces and cities across the country.

Now, the suspects are subject to criminal coercive measures according to the law by the police, and the case is under further investigation. (Mar. 27^th, cnxw.com.cn)

Anti-unfair competition

Over $9 Million Compensation Ruled for the Unfair Competition Act of Quannengbike App

The Primary People's Court of Xuhui District of Shanghai Municipality awarded more than $9 million compensation to the plaintiff Hellobike in a lawsuit over unfair competition against the operator of the App Quannengbike.

Hellobike entered the bike-sharing market in 2016 and has become one of the shared bikes that people are very familiar with in daily cycling.

The APP Quannengbike was launched in 2017. It did not have a single physical bike, but users who registered can obtain an account of existing sharing bike brands on the market. With the help of simulated login and other technical means, the APP can realize the physical function of unlocking and locking all brands of bikes, so that its registered users can ride all brands of bikes, including Hellobike.

Therefore, Hallobike asserted that the operator of the Quannengbike APP constitutes unfair competition and filed a lawsuit.

The court held that the Quannengbike APP operator has a competitive relationship with Hellobike, and thus, the anti-unfair competition law should apply. When determining whether the defendant destructed the market competition order, the court mainly judged from six aspects of the market mechanism: access mechanism, supply and demand mechanism, price mechanism, information mechanism, credit mechanism, and innovation mechanism. Finally, the court concluded that the operator of the Quannengbike App infringed the competition rights of Hellobike and constituted unfair competition, thus making the aforementioned judgment. (Mar. 19^th, Xuhui district of Shanghai municipality)

Statistics

National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC) Reports on the Copyright Registration in China in 2022

In 2022, there were 6,353,144 copyrights registered nationwide, up by 1.42% year-on-year. Among them, the number of the copyright of works was 4,517,453 with an increase of 13.39% year-on-year; the copyright of computer software was 1,835,341, seeing a decrease of 19.5% year-on-year.

It can be seen from the breakdown statistics of the copyright of works, by types of works, artworks are the most registered, accounting for 47.24% followed by photographs, accounting for 35.49%, literary works accounting for 7.73%, film and television works accounting for 4.38%. (March 21st, National Copyright Administration of China)

Intellectual Property Court of the SPC Releases 2022 Annual Report and 2022 Typical Cases

In 2022, Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People's Court (short for SPC-IPC) accepted 6,183 technology-related IP appeal cases and monopoly appeal cases (including 4,405 newly accepted cases and 1,778 unclosed existing cases), and closed 3,468 cases with a conclusion rate of 78.7%.

The number of SPC-IPC’s newly accepted cases accounted for 86.4% of the second-instance substantive civil disputes and 100% of the second-instance substantive administrative disputes of SPC’s whole cases. In terms of the overall numbers of accepted cases and closed cases plus the average number of cases closed per judge and supporting staff, SPC-IPC ranks the first among all SPC’s adjudication divisions.

Compared with 2021, the number of total accepted cases (consisting of both newly accepted and unclosed existing cases) increased by 18%, of which new cases increased by 1.6% and the number of closed cases increased by 0.2%. (March 30^th, SPC-IPC)

Policy-related

The State Administration for Market Regulation Issued Four Supporting Regulations for Anti-monopoly Law

Based on the newly amended Anti-monopoly Law in 2022, the State Administration for Market Regulation recently issued four supporting regulations on Prohibition of Abuse of Administrative Power to Eliminate or Restrict Competition, Prohibition of Monopoly Agreements, Prohibition of Abuse of Dominant Market Position, and Review of Concentration of Undertakings. These four supporting regulations will come into effect on April 15th, 2023. (Mar. 24^th, China Market Regulatory News)