One of our China IP lawyers tends towards sarcasm, and in cleaning out my email stack I found this email: Another company that loves China so much that they have already given all their IP to a Chinese company with nothing in return. American and European companies seem not to realize that if they teach
As we have written a number of times, the essential first step in any China IP strategy is to register your trademarks with China’s Trademark Office. Because China is a first-to-file country, until you register a trademark in China you have no rights in that trademark in China. But a trademark registration alone goes only
Every so often, someone about to have their Chinese company shut down by the Chinese government contacts us. These sorts of contacts accelerate during economic slowdowns and times of tension and that has been the case of late as well. The following is a composite of some of the emails we have received relating to
Many of our lawyers and staff attended international schools or are sons or daughters of teachers or professors. I spent my junior year of high school at Robert College in Istanbul, a year studying Spanish at LAE Madrid and Taronja Spanish School in Valencia, Spain (both are excellent, BTW) and 8 months studying French at the
The Limited Value of Chinese Factory Indemnification Navigating the differences between Western and Chinese legal systems is seldom an easy endeavor, but this is especially true for indemnification clauses. Though these clauses are robust and effective tools in Western countries with mature legal frameworks, their efficacy in China-based manufacturing agreements is considerably murkier. This post
When Beijing-born Chloé Zhao won the Academy Award for Best Director (and Best Picture) last week for Nomadland, the mainland Chinese media were under instructions to remain silent, and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) censors had turned on their Chloé Zhao filters, preventing mainland movie fans from celebrating the ascent of a native daughter to the
I wrote the below article many years ago with Gregory Buyoff, a good friend, a brilliant international IP lawyer, and the most knowledgeable person I’ve ever known on Vietnam history. Intellectual Property Magazine published this article, but it no longer shows up on its website so I am running it here (with a few updates),
As we have written many times over the years, if you are selling goods into China, sourcing goods from China, or just doing business in/with China, you should probably register trademarks in China for your brand names and logos. China is a first-to-file country and it does not require evidence of prior use. This means
This post highlights four common and somewhat egregious mistakes my law firm’s China lawyers often see lawyers make when representing their clients in doing business with or in China, along with a very brief analysis of what causes each sort of mistake. 1. Not Realizing that China’s Bureaucracy Puts Form Over Substance Many years ago, a U.S.
China is not an employment-at-will jurisdiction and terminating China employees is nearly always difficult. To make things even more challenging, many foreign companies doing business in China manage their China affairs from afar.
