China IP SME Helpdesk Newsletter

The new edition, launched by the Directorate General Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs and the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA) of the European Commission, complements the European IP Helpdesk and the African IP Helpdesk. The new edition of the Intellectual Property Helpdesks intends to provide free-of-charge assistance relating to intellectual property issues to SMEs doing business with or in the target markets, based in the EU and in Single Market Programme (SMP​) countries.This service consists in providing 'first-line' assistance, which does not extend, for instance, to the drafting of patent applications or of contracts, so as not to compete with existing law firms or other operators.

In the occasion of the World IP Day 2023, we recently spoke with Catherine Heng Yee Huynh, a bi-cultural and enthusiastic Intellectual Property Law and Data Privacy lawyer based in Paris, France. She is the founding partner of the law firm CATHERINE HENG YEE HUYNH and has expertise in the protection of creations, especially in France, mainland China and Hong Kong. Catherine shared with us the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in the IP domain, including the fact that women are still underrepresented in the field.

ChatGPT is the new buzzword in China, leaving many wonder about the authorship and ownership of the works created with the help of ChatGPT and other similar AI applications. In this article, the China IP SME Helpdesk external expert Mr Reinout van Malenstein explains where the Chinese copyright law stands on this matter.

In January 2023, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) published the Draft Amendments to the Trademark Law for public consultation. The recent Draft Amendments propose substantial changes to the Trademark Law, including strengthened measures to fight against bad-faith trademark applications, providing more means to rights holders to challenge these applications. The China IP SME Helpdesk external expert Mr Thomas Pattloch and Ms Louise Popple from TaylorWessing Law Firm have drafted an in-depth analysis of the proposed changes to the Trademark Law.

The Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) recently launched a new trade mark online application system to improve online trade mark registrations. According to TIPO, the new application system “offers a range of frequently-used application forms, such as those for graphic, color, sound, and three-dimensional trademarks, as well as certification marks.

The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) remains committed to fighting against bad faith trade mark registrations and trade mark squatting – a practice whereby a malicious entity in China registers a third party’s trade mark with the aim of selling it back to the legitimate owner at an inflated price. The CNIPA is currently in the process of amending the Trade Mark Law. The new Trade Mark Law is expected to “further specify situations of malicious trademark registrations and highlight the principle of prohibiting the abuse of trademark rights

The CNIPA has recently released the 2022 intellectual property filing statistics. According to the statistics, in 2022 the number of patens in China owned by foreign entities reached 861,000, representing a 4.5% increase year-on-year. The number of trade marks owned by foreign entities reached 2.03 million.

The Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) recently launched a new trade mark online application system to improve online trade mark registrations. According to TIPO, the new application system “offers a range of frequently-used application forms, such as those for graphic, color, sound, and three-dimensional trademarks, as well as certification marks”.

The Chinese courts are determined to improve trademark protection and reduce the costs of IP protection. To this end, the authorities plan to“ implement an IP cooperative protection guideline jointly issued by the top court and the China National Intellectual Property Administration in February, calling for all courts to strictly abide by the Trademark Law and the Anti-Unfair Competition Law to help innovators reduce their costs in protecting IP rights”

The annual report issued by the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People's Court reveals that more foreign litigants are choosing to resolve international intellectual property disputes in China. The China IP SME Helpdesk reminds EU SMEs that choosing China as a jurisdiction of dispute litigation in case of IP-related contracts with Chinese partners is a wise decision, as it makes it much easier to enforce the court decisions in China, something that foreign SMEs oftentimes overlook.