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
China manufacturing contracts are very different from Western manufacturing contracts, for reasons which stem from differences in laws or differences in economics. This means our China manufacturing lawyers often must explain why they are doing something in China manufacturing so different from the way the client “always does it” in the West. One of the
Like so many other U.S. industries, the U.S. vaping industry is now in the crosshairs of a 25% tariff on products imported from China. The first two waves of proposed tariffs against China covered about $50 billion worth of Chinese products, but did not include vaping products. After China retaliated and proposed its own equivalent
A lawyer friend of mine emailed me a link the other day that had been sent to him by one of his clients. The link was to an article written nearly two years ago, China Supplier Vetting, Part 1: Background Checks, and he wanted my opinion on it. I responded by telling my friend that
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
Chinese manufacturers are notorious for making and sending bad products. Not surprisingly, foreign buyers of these bad products often refuse to pay their Chinese factory anything more for those products. This unpaid amount is often substantial. The foreign buyer then moves on to a new factory. This new factory is often located in the same
Smart Chinese manufacturers know that with their costs rising, they need to be able to distinguish themselves from their peers. One of the ways they are choosing to do this (even more frequently than in the past) is by copying and selling products they are making for their foreign customers. See Your China Factory as
Visit Your Overseas Factories One of the things my law firm’s international manufacturing lawyers always tell our clients is to visit their overseas factories, if at all possible. Factory Visits Show You Care Such a trip is critical for the following four reasons: Visiting your foreign factory emphasizes that you care. Why should your factory
One of the joys of blogging is finding gems in unlikely places. The gem is a post entitled Jewelry and Gold Plating Problems: Can You Trust Chinese Factories? I say unlikely because neither (nor I would bet, most of our readers) have much interest in jewelry plating problems. The post is written by a Shenzhen-based
