1. China's New Foreign Investment Law Under U.S. pressure, China recently adopted a new Foreign Investment Law 中华人民共和国外商投资法 ("FIL") that had been under discussion for several years. Many believe this law will lead to foreign invested enterprises being treated the same as domestic Chinese private businesses. Unfortunately (and not surprisingly), the existing system that limits
A successful product launch can give a Chinese factory, trademark squatter, or competitor information and leverage you cannot easily take back. Before going public, startups manufacturing in China should secure key IP, protect sensitive information, verify their factories, and lock down development, tooling, and production rights.
1. The Huawei Indictments On January 28, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed two indictments against Huawei. The first indictment concerns ongoing claims against Huawei and its CFO, Meng Wanzhou, for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions against Iran. The second and more interesting indictment concerns alleged trade secret thefts by Huawei's U.S. subsidiary under the direction
In the past few months, our China lawyers have been seeing something new and troubling with China licensing agreements. Before I explain, let me step back and give a bit of history. This post is important so please stay with me. In a typical China licensing deal the foreign licensor grants the Chinese licensee the
Everything China comes in waves and China trademark "theft" is no different. When we first started this blog back in 2006, we would get a call just about every week from someone wanting to sue a Chinese company blocking the company's product from leaving China. We hated those calls because most of the time our
Developing self driving cars is the centerpiece of the Chinese government's plan to redesign its manufacturing and technology sector. The Chinese have coined the term Intelligent and Connected Vehicles (ICV) (智能网联汽车）as their technical term for the China version of what is an international race towards a difficult technical goal. The ICV is an ideal goal
Getting the right trademark class is not enough in China. China divides Nice classes into smaller similarity groups, or subclasses, that often determine the practical scope of a trademark registration. This post explains how Nice classes, Basic Numbers, and China’s subclass system work together—and why getting the classification wrong can leave a company’s most important products unprotected.
Our China IP lawyers have lately been seeing a steady increase in China design patent filings, as Western companies increasingly come to understand the need to be proactive in protecting their IP from China. We file most design patents to protect product designs, but some are filed for defensive purposes. The defensive design patents are
When working on complex contract manufacturing agreements, most of our clients tell us their main goal is to protect their intellectual property. This is particularly true for designers of start-up products where much of of their IP consists of trade secrets and know-how that require a formal agreement with the manufacturer. However, as we work
China trademark cancellations are often less about removing a dead registration than about timing your own application correctly. This post explains how non-use cancellations work, when CNIPA can suspend related review proceedings, and how to coordinate cancellation strategy with a new China trademark filing.
