All posts by legal

Recently, Zhejiang Tea Group Co., Ltd., (“ZJ Tea”), the owner of the registered trademark “Shifeng “, files a lawsuit against Hangzhou Shifeng Tea Co., Ltd. (“HZ Tea”). ZJ Tea claims that HZ Tea has used “Shifeng Tea”, “Taste Shifeng” on its online store, printed “Shifeng Longjing” on packaging boxes and bags, and highlighted “Shifeng”, which has infringed ZJ Tea’s registered trademark. HZ Tea counterpleads that its logo is “Shifeng”, and it sells tea; in addition “Shifeng” is the generic name for the tea in respect of origin and quality. Then, using a logo similar to a registered trademark shall be…

Company A notified Ms. Chen on dissolution of labor contract for her absenteeism. Ms. Chen filed to Labor Arbitration Committee, and claimed that she had asked for leave for those said absenteeism, so Company A should pay economic compensation for its illegally dissolution of labor contract. For Chen’s claim, Company A provided the notarized screen shots of Chen’s weibo and blog, in which the photos’ date were different from those days she asked for leave. Finally, Labor Arbitration Committee rejected Chen’s request. In the past, for labor disputes, data message evidence are the records between employees and employers in work,…

Prior Art (“PA”) defense is one of defenses in patent infringement disputes. It’s claimed by the defendant with regard to plaintiff’s claim of cessation of the infringement, compensation for damages, which aims at affirming the legality of defendant’s act, rather than denying the novelty of the patent or its scope of protection. In short, it functions as a veto of infringement. According to Article 22 of Patent Law (revised vision of 2008), the term “PA” refers to the technologies known to the general public both domestic and foreign prior to the date of application. Thus the judge of PA involves…

Ms. Zhang, who has a working age of 11 years, got pregnant in the fifth year in Company A. In order to prevent miscarriage, Ms. Zhang had asked for sick leave total of 6 months out of 7 months. In accordance with the rules and regulations of the company, Company A offered her with a sick pay of 100% of her wage. Thereafter, Ms. Zhang asked for another prenatal leave of 2.5 months to Company A, who approved and paid her 60% of her wage as sick pay. However, Ms. Zhang claimed that she should be paid 80% of her…

As intellectual property plays a more and more important role in competition, disputes over ownership of patent increase. Among which, the disputes triggered by application of patent by former technologists are usually too complicated to be settled. Service Invention (‘SI’) refers to a job-related invention-creation made by any person in execution of the tasks of the entity to which he belongs or by primarily using the material resources of the entity. (Patent Law, Article 6). Currently, SI is mainly defined according to the Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Patent Law, Article 11, 12. According to Article 12, ‘a…

Yang was engaged in a labor dispute with Company A, and applied to the Labor Dispute Arbitration Committees (‘Committees’) for arbitration. Yang offered a ‘Proof of Income’ affixed with the official seal of Company A, and asked for corresponding salary and economic compensation. Company A, however, denied having issued such ‘Proof of Income’, and offered all pay sheets Yang signed to prove the unconformity between ‘Proof of Income’ and the fact. According to the Committees, Company A denied the authenticity of ‘Proof of Income’, but it failed to provide relevant evidence, so verdict was made based on ‘Proof of Income’.…

In practice, the anonymous investment is quite common. However, under the existing laws and regulations, the legal risks faced by dormant shareholders are noteworthy, there are mainly as follows: I. The dormant (“D”) shareholders may not obtain the shareholder status. In practice, there is none unified criteria on dealing with such identification cases, generally speaking, the judges would be strict to such appeal. II. The nominal (“N”) shareholders may bring risks to the D shareholders. Such as, a N shareholder may transfer or pledge shares at his own discretion, and then a D shareholder can only claim for breach of…