Over 500 people attended the 5 half-day Trade mark strategy conferences in Chengdu, Qingdao, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Wuhan organised by IP Key between 1-8 June. The purpose of the trade mark IP strategy conference is to support Chinese companies and legal representatives on IP issues as they internationalise their business.

Two videos were launched during the conference highlighting how to use TMview and TMclass for pre and post registration strategy. The video can be viewed in the following links:

2015 marked the 10th anniversary of the EU-China IP Dialogue Mechanism, with that in mind the European Chamber of Commerce in China recognised China’s most IP-friendly regions, with an IP Awards Ceremony and conference which took place on the 30th March 2016.

The European Chamber, and in particular Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Working Group, defined five evaluation indicators which made up the award categories:

OHIM is now known as the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), the Community trade mark is now called the European Union trade mark. With this amendment there are also revisions of  the fees payable to the Office, including an overall reduction in their amounts, particularly in the case of trade mark renewal fees. The Office’s online application forms and fee calculator have been automatically updated to reflect the new system.

On June 23 and 24 the European Commission and the State Administration for Industry & Commerce partnered in a two-day expert roundtable that  featured Chinese and EU experts’ discussions on major issues in the protection of trademark and Geographical Indications. The event was hosted at SAIC premises in Beijing and focused – in particular - on the challenges encountered by examiners in adjudicating oppositions and invalidations of trademarks filed in “bad-faith”.

Between May 9 and 17, 2016 IP Key organised a set of peer to peer exchanges for a delegation of 12 officials of the Legislative Affairs Commission at the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (in short, LAC), that traveled to Belgium, Finland and Sweden.

The Chinese official delegation was led by the Director of the Civil Law Department and vice-headed by the Director of the Economic Law Department of the LAC.

In the context of the EU-China Action Plan (2014-2017) on IPR Customs Enforcement, IP Key is going to co-organise an event on cross-agency cooperation on the investigation of serious IP infringement cases in Alicante, Spain from 24 to 26 February 2016. The aim of the event is to strengthen EU-China interaction and cooperation between customs and other law enforcement agencies and authorities to stop production and wind up distribution networks.

The Third Yearly Action Plan (YAP3) of IP Key for 2016 has been endorsed on 19 January 2016 after close consultation with all project stakeholders, including 15 Chinese agencies and ministries under the coordination of MOFCOM. The project’s third action plan is ambitious and, as in the past, continues to cover all areas of IP. Areas of intervention include trademarks and unfair competition; patents and innovation policies; designs; copyrights and related rights; trade secrets; geographical indications; and enforcement among others.

The workshop held on the 20- 21 June bought together academics from both the EU and Chinese universities, to discuss the development of an EU-China IP Research Network.

Academia cooperation was highlighted as a key element in the  Memorandum of Understanding on reinforcing the EU-China IP Dialogue Mechanism, which was signed (with Ms. Cecilia Malmström, Commissioner for Trade, and Mr. GAO Hucheng, Minister of Commerce of China) on the sidelines of the EU-China Summit, on 29 June 2015 in Brussels. 

In an effort to provide more awareness to EU stakeholders about China’s patent invalidation system, the Patent Re-Examination Board (PRB) of China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) and IP Key Project launched the key PRB cases activity. The first step of this activity was to choose PRB cases based upon their representativeness of key lessons/considerations European industry should take into account in their patent management strategies in China.

Legal Issues Related to Events Broadcasting