An article titled, Kickstarter Prototype to Production: $100K is not Enough, is getting a lot of play on Linkedin among the China manufacturing crowd, with those I know who know China manufacturing agreeing with it. The article provides compelling reasons why getting an electronics product manufactured in China will nearly always require more than $100,000.
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
The purpose of a trademark, from both a legal and branding perspective, is to identify the source of goods. It follows, therefore, that the best trademarks are both memorable and distinctive. You want people to associate your brand with your company, not confuse your brand with other brands. You also want to make sure your
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
Currently, the number one film in China is the smash hit Hello Mr. Billionaire (US$306M and counting). It’s a comedy about a hapless soccer player who stands to inherit 30 billion RMB, but only if he can spend 1 billion RMB in a month (albeit with a number of complicated conditions, like no gambling, donating
China wants foreign technology and it understands it must pay for it. This is not to say China IP licensing deals are not without their own brand of major and minor pitfalls. Proposed China licensing deals that involve the foreign company One of the risky things our China licensing lawyers constantly see are proposed China
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
Our China trademark lawyers are often asked about the difference between the Nice Classification system for trademarks and China’s trademark subclass system. They are related, but quite different. The Nice Classification system is an international classification of goods and services that separates all possible goods and services into 45 classes: 34 classes for goods and
My law firm writes more China NNN Agreements than any other contract. We have been drafting 5-15 of these a month for more than 15 years. These are basic and important agreements no matter what your industry. We write China NNN Agreements to protect against disclosure, competition, and circumvention. For more on what goes into
