Legal News

The “Foreign Investment Law” is promulgated on 15 Mar. 2019 and has been implemented from 1 Jan. 2020. As the supplementary regulation, the “Implementation Regulations for the Foreign Investment Law” (hereinafter referred to as the “Implementation Regulations”) is promulgated on 31 Dec. 2019, and has been implemented on the following day. Compared with the “Foreign Investment Law”, the “Implementation Regulations” has provided some detailed provisions and guiding opinions. Here are several key aspects for reference. 1.The investors of a foreign-invested enterprise include Chinese natural persons. The “Law on Sino-foreign Equity Joint Ventures” and the “Law on Sino-foreign Cooperative Joint Ventures”,…

The Supreme People’s Court issued the “Notice of the Supreme People’s Court on Issuing the Minutes of the National Court Work Conference for Civil and Commercial Trials” (Fa [2019] No.254, hereinafter referred to as the “Minutes”) on 8 Nov. 2019. The Minutes has stipulates the determination rules on difficult issues related to 9 categories of disputes, such as the company, contract, guarantee, bankruptcy and etc.. The Minutes has also stipulates the rules on dealing with the problems related to civil procedures, such as the connection of laws for the application of the General Rules of the Civil Law, hearing of…

One of the key amendment aspects is the regulations on the honesty and integrity principle, such as the responsibilities related to the use of trademarks, curbing malicious trademark applications and trademark agencies. In order to better implement those articles, recently, SAIC releases the “Several Provisions on Standardizing Application for Trademark Registration” (the “Provisions”), we have picked out some practical articles for your reference. 1. To deal with circumstances which the application of a trademark has violated the reasons as stipulated in the “Provisions” In the application session, the trademark registration authorities shall reject and refuse to gazette. In the preliminarily…

On 23rd Sep. 2019, SIPO released the newly amended “Guidelines for Patent Examination”, which will come into force from 1st Nov. 2019. The amended version has amended many aspects, among which the amendment on the examination on the design patent related to Graphic User Interfaces (“GUI”) is eye-catching. 1. Requirements on the product’s name The amended version requires the name should indicate GUI’s main purpose and the products to which it is applied. Generally, there must be keywords of “graphical user interface” and a key word of “dynamic” shall be contained in the product name of the dynamic GUI. 2.…

As the product of industrial AI, the industrial internet uses the internet to connect people, machines and objects. The industrial internet has developed rapidly in recent years. In the operation of the industrial internet, a large amount of data would be collected, analyzed, transmitted, and archived. Those data may involve personal privacy, corporate trade secrets, and even state secrets. In order to strengthen the data protection, the state has successively released the “Cyber Security Law”, the “Industrial Control Network Security Risk Assessment Specification”, and national standards. In order to further strengthen the administration on the industrial internet security, MIIT and…

The Shanghai Municipal People’s Government has released the beneficial policy on promoting development of regional headquarters of multinational companies from 2002, and updated the relevant policy every few years. Recently, in order to further attract foreign investments, and level up the quality of foreign investments, the government has updated the policy again, which is the “Several Opinions of Shanghai Municipal People’s Government on Promoting Development of Regional Headquarters of Multinational Companies in the Municipality” (Hu Fu Gui [2019] No.30, hereinafter referred to as the “Opinions”). The main points are as follows: 1. To reduce the determination standards (1) To relax…

For a long time, the monopoly behaviors could be regulated by 3 departments, which are the SAMR, NDRC and MOFCOM. The cross-administration makes the original “Interim Provisions on Prohibiting Monopoly Agreements” (the “Original Provisions”) issued in 2011 by SAIC (the predecessor of SAMR), could not be implemented smoothly. On Mar. 2018, CPC Central Committee issued the “Proposal for Deepening the Reform of the Party and State Institutions”, in which SAMR has been assigned as the department which shall conduct the anti-monopoly enforcement comprehensively. Recently, SAMR has issued 3 supplementary regulations for the “Anti-monopoly Law”. The 3 regulations include, the “Interim…

Due to the lack of the laws and regulations on the protection of shareholders’ rights and interests, there are disputes in the judicial practice. In order to solve those disputes, on 22 Apr. 2019, the “Provisions V” was adopted at the 1,766th session of the Judicial Committee of the Supreme People’s Court, which has come into force on 29 Apr. 2019. The main contents are as follows. 1. Where a related party transaction compromises the interests of a company, even the required procedures have been conducted, the court could still require the relevant shareholders to undertake liabilities. Article 1 of…

On 23rd Apr., 2019, the Tenth Session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress passed a decision to amend the “Trademark Law”, which will be taken into force from 1st Nov., 2019. The amendment is aimed to strengthen the administration on 3 categories of behaviors. 1. Applications for trademark registrations in bad faith First, Paragraph 1 Article 4 of the “Trademark Law” has added that applications for trademark registrations in bad faith which are not intended for use shall be refused. Such circumstance could be taken as a basis for opposing a third-party trademark and as a…

In judicial practice, there are many doubts on the application of the “Enterprise Bankruptcy Law” in dealing with creditors’ rights and other issues, while hearing a bankruptcy case. In order to clarify some of those doubts, Provisions (III) as adopted at the 1762th meeting of the Judicial Committee of the Supreme People’s Court on 25 Feb. 2019, and has become effective on 28 Mar.2019. The main contents include: 1. For the common credits and the credits for the purpose of continuing operations during the bankruptcy proceeding, the later shall be prevail Article 2 of Provisions (III) prescribes that for the…