All posts by legal

During the procedures of the lawsuits related to the disputes over the ownership of the right to apply for a patent or the patent right (hereinafter referred to as “Patent Ownership Dispute”), the related patent may be invalid in the invalidation procedure, or the defendant may surrender, or transfer the relevant patent, which may bring significant disadvantages to the plaintiff. In regard of this, “Patent Law” has stipulated the “Suspension System” to solve such problem. “Suspension System” refers to the patent administration department shall be entitled to suspend the relevant procedures based on the application of the party (note: normally…

Mr. Lee graduated in July 2013, and joined a Beijing Company in September. He asked for sick leave on 20th January 2014 for the first time. Till 19th July, his sick leave was 79 days in whole. In August, he asked for another 31 days sick leave. On the 1st September, the company notified him to dissolve the labor contract for the reason that his had asked for sick leave more than 3 months. Mr. Lee brought the dispute to the labor arbitration committee, finally, the committee made the order which against the company. In this case, the company has…

The abuse of IPR to preclude or restrict competition is a hot topic in the recent years, such actions go against the legislative purpose on the protection of IPR, which could also bring the monopoly problems. Under such circumstance, “Provisions” has been issued on 7th Apr. 2015, which prohibits the business operator that has a dominant market position to abuse its dominant market position to preclude or restrict competition in the course of exercising IPR. The main content of “Provisions” includes: To define the definition of “abuse of IPR to preclude or restrict competition”, which says that a business operator’s…

New Balance(“NB”), the famous U.S. sneaker brand was sentenced for 98 million RMB for the infringement of “新百伦” trademark, which demonstrated a giant’s tragedy due to “Reverse Confusion”. In fact, NB is not the only giant, Pepsi (“蓝色风暴” trademark infringement case) and Castel (“卡斯特” trademark right dispute) have also encountered such tragedy in China. The key reason for the giant’s tragedy is “Reverse Confusion”. “Reverse Confusion” occurs when a junior user (normally a big scale company with higher reputation) adopts a registered trademark already in use by the senior user (normally a small scale company with lower reputation), which make…

In order to improve the employee’s welfare, Company A has stipulated an additional paid annual leave, which is 5 days, in its “Employee Handbook”. However, such employee’s welfare becomes Company A’s pressure. When an employee plans to resign, he would arrange the additional paid annual leave in whole, or require the company to pay remuneration for such additional paid annual leave rating 300% of his daily wage rate. Company A insists that the additional paid annual leave is not the statutory paid annual leave, so it shall be entitled to reject the employee’s requirements on taking the additional paid annual…

With the improvement of the awareness of IPR protection, more and more enterprises have applied for the registered trademark (“RT”). However, if the RT has been used improperly, it could not add the reputation and value of the owner and the RT itself, but might stimulate the negative impact and even legal risks. Take a basic issue on how to mark RT for example, from the aesthetic point of view, some enterprises would mark the symbol ® in the middle of RT, or mark TM besides RT like some foreign companies. In fact, according to “Regulation for the Implementation of…

Company A deemed that Zhang worked with a low efficiency, which should belong to the serious violation of the conduct rules as stipulated in the “Employee Handbook”, so it dissolved the labor contract with Zhang. Zhang filed to the labor arbitration committee. Finally, the committee found that Company A lacked of evidence to prove that Zhang had seriously violated the conduct rules, and ruled against Company A. In practice, “Slack Off” has two types, 1) the employee works with low efficiency; 2) warm chair attrition. Then, how to deal with such “Slack Off” appropriately for those employers? For different types…

Recently, Suzhou Intermediate People’s Court has ruled on the jurisdiction dispute on a Tmall Online Shopping case, which raises a widespread concern. In this case, the court applies the article of the newly promulgated “Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court concerning the Implementation of the Civil Procedure law” (“New Interpretation”), in which prescribes if both parties have signed the purchase contract via an information network, and the object is delivered via an information network as well, the place of performance shall be the place of the buyer. Finally, the court rules that the case shall be heard by the court…