One of the most common calls our China lawyers get is the one from someone saying they want to “start a business in China.” The first thing we do with that sort of caller is to seek to ascertain whether a China business is actually necessary. Forming and then operating a business entity in China
When we first started this blog way back in 2006, we would constantly write how if you want to protect your IP in China, you have to register your IP in China. Our thesis was (and is) that if you don’t bother registering your IP in China, you really have no right to complain about
In Inside the Chinese Boom in Corporate Espionage, Bloomberg Businessweek tells the sorry tale of a U.S. company that claims a Chinese manufacturer stole its proprietary software for use in a Chinese wind turbine project. For someone who has worked in or with China for nearly twenty years, the response is a stifled yawn: the
In 1995, a Chinese company registered the name Ai Ma Shi, which is what Chinese call Hermès. Hermes has for a long time sought to take away the Chinese company’s trademark registration of Ai Ma Shi and secure it for itself. Chinese courts have consistently ruled against Hermès and a Chinese court did so again
A reporter called me the other day on the Apple-Proview trademark kerfuffle. She kept wanting me to give her a quote on what foreign companies should take away from this dispute and I kept parrying with her, unable to give her just one. I kept finding myself saying “it’s more complicated than that.” Let me
This latest recession has caused many businesses to look to cut costs by outsourcing their product manufacturing to China. Unfortunately, many of these companies now engaging in outsourcing their manufacturing to China fail to take the legal steps necessary to protect themselves. When problems arise, they can do little or nothing to protect themselves because
Many years ago, my old law firm brought in a “legal marketing expert” to lead a marketing seminar for the firm. I do not remember a single thing from that session beyond that the expert forced each of us to describe our practice as though we had just been asked to do so by someone
Our advice to companies that do any business with China (including those that merely have their products made in China) is to register their trademarks in China before they go there. China is a first to register country, which means that whoever registers a trademark first gets it. I repeat: in China, whoever registers a
In China everything can and is faked, even the JeAbsolutely fascinating story in today's Washington Post, entitled, Sold on a Stereotype: In China, a genre of self-help books purports to tell the secrets of making money "the Jewish way". Seems the Chinese think very highly of Jews, both for their perceived ability as businesspeople, and for their honesty and family values. China has some 50+ books focusing on emulating the Jewish path to success.
Many China law firms on the Internet are completely fake and dangerous as hell.
