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Company T sued Company E for trademark infringement. T required E to stop the infringement, compensate for the losses, in addition, it required E to publish an apology in its local newspaper. If the court held that E had infringed T’s trademark, whether it would support T’s request for an apology? The answer is negative. The “Patent Law” has listed the measures of assuming responsibility for infringement; however, the apology is not one of those measures. The reason is that a patent is a property right, which does not have personal attributes. Therefore, it is generally believed that such infringement…

In January 2018, Guo caused losses to the company due to work errors, and Guo was suspended from his work without wages. Later, the company unilaterally terminated the labor contract, and Guo claimed for the wages of the suspension period. In the end, the court held that the labor relationship was valid during the suspension period, so the company should pay the relevant wages. (See (2020) Ji 01 Min Zhong No. 1642). Such cases are not rare. In the event of an employee’s misconduct or work errors, in order to conduct the investigation without any obstacle, and prevent the employee…

Company A signed a purchase contract with Company B. Later then, Company B was merged by Company C. Because Company A had disputes with Company C, it was unwilling to do business with Company C. Then, whether Company A could refuse to do business with Company C?  Article 174 of the “Company Law” stipulates: “when a company is merged, the credits and debts of all parties to the merger shall be inherited by the surviving company or the newly established company”. Article 90 of the “Contract Law” stipulates: “If the parties merge after the contract is concluded, the merged legal…

In December 2016, a few days after Dong lost contact, the company terminated the labor contract for absenteeism. In April 2017, Dong was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and the doctor stated that the disease had begun in August 2016. Dong’s daughter claimed that the company had terminated the labor contract illegally. The Shanghai High People’s Court finally determined it was an illegal termination of the labor contract. ((2018) Hu Min Shen No.2313). In practice, if an employer has stipulated that absenteeism for a certain number of days, it could terminate the labor contract. Where an employee loses contact, normally the employer…

The business name is administrated by SAMR, and the registered trademark is administrated by the Trade Office. These are two different administrative procedures, so nobody could check crosswise. How to defend rights when you encounter the identical/similar business name and registered trademark? The first circumstance: a registered trademark is prior. Article 1 of the “Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court on Certain Issues Concerning the Application of Law to Adjudication of Civil Cases of Trademark Disputes” (FA SHI (2002) No.32) prescribes that using wording that is identical or similar to another’s registered trademark as a business name and displaying it…

Fu was late for more than 70 times within 10 months after he was onboard. The company terminated the employment contract with the reason that Fu had committed a serious breach of the company’s rules and regulations. Fu filed a lawsuit against the company. The court held that the company knew that Fu had been late for work very frequently for a long time, but it had not punished Fu in accordance with the “Employee Handbook”, which indicated that the attendance was not a factor in the evluation of employees’ performance. The court decided that the company had terminated the…

In the previous issue, we introduced how to prevent scams. However, if a company encountered a scam, it would be very difficult to claim damages from the fraudsters. Some companies have another thought, which is to claim damages from the relevant employees. Whether companies could claim damages from the relevant employees? If the answer is yes, then how much could be claimed? To choose an appropriate cause of action for civil cases is very important. Some companies claimed damages based on labor disputes. Unfortunately, Article 16 of the “Notice on Issuing the Tentative Provisions on Payment of Wages” prescribes that…