On 26 april, world intellectual property day 18, on the theme “advancing cultural innovation and respecting intellectual property rights”, was launched. In the context of the fortieth anniversary of the reform and opening-up of the national intellectual property strategy, and in the crucial period of the economic transition and the transformation of old and new dynamics, and in order to fully demonstrate the new developments in the area of intellectual property protection in our province, the new landscape, new experiences and new results, and to raise the awareness of society as a whole of the need to promote innovation and combat abuse, the paper introduces “no to abuses — special coverage of intellectual property day”。
What role does the law play in protecting intellectual property and safeguarding innovation, as a private “protector shield” of innovation by market agents? In recent days, journalists from this newspaper visited my province’s first firm, hunan-chung, an intellectual property protection firm。
News from san francisco, chang ho
Case: patent defence
The old professor suffered patent infringement, and the lawyer recovered over $4 million in damages
The receiver, also known as the collector boots, is a dynamic streaming device to meet the train's electricity needs. Until the arrival of the national product receiver, our market for the receivers was monopolized by european and american enterprises。
In 2010, professor chen gue of the former centre for the study of magnetic engineering in the defence department set up the “more applications research and development institute” to develop a national product receiver and to spearhead the design of a national product receiver that matches the composite tracks of steel aluminium。
Professor chen's design of a national product product has a clear advantage compared to similar products in europe and the united states: it costs half as much as half the price. The market also quickly opened its arms to him, and according to statistics, his design was followed by beijing subway line 7, line 8, beijing medium- and low-speed magnetic float line s1, guangzhou subway line 4 and argentina buenos aires line。
Autonomously designed products are popular in the market, yet professor chen has not been rewarded accordingly. And he said, "i first chose to work with a company, and we agreed at the beginning that the company would use my design drawings and i would get the corresponding design patent fee from the company's sales." professor chen was disappointed, however, that the enterprise had not only failed to meet its pay commitments on time since then, but also that its patent would be “marked as its own” in subsequent project tenders or product patent fairs。
In order to preserve the inviolability of his legitimate intellectual property rights, professor chen ultimately chose to defend them by legal means. Following the intervention of the intellectual property brand protection team of hunan china law office, he eventually settled with the other party and successfully recovered more than 4 million royalties。
“as a result of our investigation and evidence, for six years, the five patents of the old professor were appropriated by the cooperative and several papers were stolen by their peers. He's been working hard for years, and it's like an old product on the market." he stated that, after obtaining solid evidence, he had repeatedly negotiated with tort enterprises as a client, leading to reconciliation between the parties. It seems to yvonne that the protection of intellectual property rights in our country has not started for long, and that the sense of ownership of patent infringers is rather low. “if it is not for the parties concerned to take decisive action to defend their rights and bring them to justice, the violator will generally resort to delaying tactics and trivialization.”
Case of trademark defence
Third-party coordination to optimize business environment for enterprises
“with the assistance of a third party, there is a bridge to regulate the market, and the protection of trademarks is much better and more effective.” he is deeply touched by the difficulty of defending the trademarks, the manager of the hunan branch of shanghai crown garden food company ltd。
From 2013, when he came to hunan management market, he discovered that there were all kinds of hypocritical “brabbit” milk. Consumer poisoning due to counterfeit brand products has resulted in serious damage to the reputation of crownyards. Sales staff have spent enough to complete only $7 million in sales for the year, which is far below the target set at the beginning of the year。
In order to protect the legitimate interests of consumers and enterprises themselves, the shanghai crown garden foods company ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the shanghai crown garden) has set up a fake business. However, they have not been able to bridge the gap between jurisdiction, forensic investigation, association and consolidation of gains, and have been less effective。
In 2014, the shanghai crownyard entrusted the management of brand market supervision in the provinces of hunan, hubei, jiangxi, guizhou, guangdong and guangxi to the management of the hubbard trademarks company ltd. Of hunan province, which, in turn, hired a special representation from hunan china law office to design an ipr protection suit to help businesses block the counterfeit product market using the cooperation model of trademark +. This has completely changed the passivity of past market regulation at shanghai crown park。
“we have an intellectual property litigator assigned to each municipality to represent the trademark rights dispute. In addition, each district is equipped with a consumer rights and protection lawyer to provide legal services free of charge to brand consumers and to motivate consumers to report false brands.” yvonne indicated that hunan central law office, in association with hunan province, united trademarks ltd., established a unified information base on daily information obtained on violations, which was readily accessible and provided evidentiary support for the identification of investigations and prosecutions. Jurisdictionally, the firm chooses to bring proceedings before the court of the place where the products are sold to infringe, in order to increase deterrence。
Under this model of cooperation, in 2016, more than 150 networks selling products in violation of the law and 36 production sites in violation of the law were prosecuted in order to block the market for counterfeit products. The effectiveness of intellectual property protection in brands has been highlighted following the closure of markets for counterfeit products. In 2017, sugar sales by the great white rabbit increased to $55 million in hunan market alone。
Innovation: breaking evidence
Integration of lawyers into the notary profession and resolution of evidentiary difficulties
In their day-to-day experience of dealing with the victims of the violations, the lawyers at hunan central law office have also experienced problems with their headaches。
“the need to protect intellectual property rights has been recognized, but in many cases it has not been operationalized. For example, innovators continue to suffer from abuse as a result of the proliferation of mountain products. Second, the low cost of tort remains. In cases of infringement of intellectual property rights, since the intellectual property is an intangible asset, it is difficult for the plaintiff to prove its actual loss, and the court's decisions are mostly awarded below the statutory amount of compensation, often with the result that the compensation is too low, leading to the expulsion of bad currency.” the executive director of the firm, mr. Zou dongteng, expressed concern。
On this year's international consumer rights day, in order to combat intellectual property violations more effectively, hunan's law firm entered into a strategic cooperation agreement with the mayor of changsha's notary office, which, through cooperation, inter alia, in the preservation of notaries of evidence, will join forces to provide more specialized evidentiary support for intellectual property rights parties, litigation, conciliation and negotiation, and protect innovators。
“in the area of intellectual property protection, lawyers and notaries, who are also members of the legal community, are acutely aware of the most advanced legal needs of society and have advantages in terms of knowledge, talent, etc., but in many cases lawyers do not facilitate the collection of evidence; notary public is highly professional, socially credible and legally competent in quasi-judicial matters.” counsel indicated that the joint cooperative model between the firm and the notary, which protects innovators, has matured in developed cities such as the north and the south, but has not been replicated in hunan. “it is to be hoped that after us, hunan will have more firms to integrate and that together we will contribute our minds and minds to the building of the great province of intellectual property.”
Team story
"inheritance is the call of the times."
On 15 march last year, hunan central law office was established to provide a professional intellectual property brand protection agency。
At the inaugural ceremony, the royal college of doctoral students, professor at the faculty of law, stated to the media, without a doubt, that “the establishment of china is consistent with the requirements of hunan as the host of the centre for science, technology and innovation in the central region, on the one hand, and the culture of craftsmen and craftsmen throughout the legal profession, on the other”
Prior to the establishment of china's law firm, there was no law firm in hunan that had devoted legal matters to intellectual property as its core business. After all, the level of fees charged within the industry has been low compared to the non-litigation business of finance, securities。
As the founder and director of the firm, illo wingfeng spoke frankly of his original purpose: “the choice of intellectual property as a field of deep cultivation is, in fact, an inevitable choice under the development of `individually small me' to respond to `the great times'.”
With regard to “individually small me”, yvonne interpreted it as “team capacity”. “huan zhongcheng has in recent years created a professional intellectual property protection team, acting on a series of major anti-violation cases for many well-known brands in the country, and has also built up the core capacity to deal with specialized intellectual property law operations by providing a permanent legal adviser to gwig electric and gwig production bases and marketing companies in the hunan region. On the other hand, innovation-driven development strategies are time-driven. In this context, intellectual property rights, as the most scientific, complete and central expression of the intellectual outcome of human innovation, have been given high priority by society in recent years. In particular, in the recent war on trade between china and the united states, intellectual property rights have become the focus of business warfare, and the current emphasis on intellectual property protection has risen to an unprecedented level。
“the future is bright and the road is rough. I firmly believe that, with the transformation of the times and economic development, respect for intellectual property rights and the protection of intellectual property rights will become a common custom written into public consciousness. I am proud to be a legal person who has been fighting for it.” before the interview was concluded, yvonne told the journalist。
