Legal Notebook

The “Priority Purchase Right “(“PPR”) refers to while a shareholder plans to transfer its equity, provided all conditions are equal, the other shareholders shall have PPR to purchase the equity. This is an arrangement in consideration of the nature of a limited liability company as a personal company. Article 71 of “Company Law” has stipulated that while a shareholder plans to transfer its equity, provided all conditions are equal, the other shareholders shall have PPR to purchase the equity. But for the transfer among the shareholders, Article 71 just prescribes that the shareholders may transfer all or part of their…

Lee had resigned from the Shanghai Branch of a Zhejiang company. While calculating the amount of high-temperature allowance, Lee required the company to pay the high-temperature allowance according to the standard of Shanghai (which is higher than the standard of Zhejiang) where he had worked for years. However, the company insisted that it had paid the high-temperature allowance according to the company’s rules and regulations, in which it had prescribed that the high-temperature allowance should be paid according to the standard of Zhejiang. Then Lee brought the dispute to the labor arbitration committee. Finally, the labor arbitration committee made the…

In practice, it is very common that a patentee or a trademark owner would send warning letters to competitors or distributors. However, after sending out such warning letters, if the patentee or the trademark owner fails to take further action, then the receiver would be affected by such warnings, but the receiver could not get a judicial relief by claim for unfair competition. In order to prevent the abuse of IPR by the rights holders to restrict competition by such warning, the confirmation of non-infringement of IPR (“Non-infringement”) came into being. Non-infringement refers to the party whose interest is affected…

Ms. Lee was the customer service staff at a Nanjing Company, and she got pregnant again. The company confirmed that Ms. Lee had violated the family planning policy, so it dissolved the labor contract without paying economic compensation, according to Article 24 of “Employee’s Labor Contract Management System”, which says that an employee violates the family planning policy shall be deemed as the employee has severely violated the employer’s internal rules. Later on, Ms. Lee brought the dispute to the labor arbitration committee, but she failed to obtain the support of the committee. However, there is a similar case happened…

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…