Legal Notebook

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…

After resigned from the company, Lee found that the company failed to fill in the reason for termination of the labor contract in the proof of termination of the labor contract, so he filled in the resaon with “layoff”. Then, he submitted a file to the labor arbitration committee, and required the company to pay the compensation amount to RMB10, 000 for terminating the labor contract in violation of the Labor Contract Law. Finally, due to the failure to prove that Lee had applied for resignation, the labor arbitration committee supported Lee’s request. In practice, due to the defective management…

While a company plans to build a website or design some promotion materials, either the company or the third party entrusted by it would use some images. Some of the images may be made by the company or the third party, however, most of them may be downloaded from the internet, such as the Baidu Images and so on. However, recently, Getty Images, Beijing Quan Jing Shi Tuo and some other image companies have filed lawsuits on copyright infringement continuously, which reminds the enterprises that “do not turn to be the next defendant”. According to the relevant provisions of “Copyright…

Mr. Zhao, an employee of a Yangzhou company, submitted the resignation at the end of the year. While calculating the rest salary, he found that the year-end bonus was missing, so he asked the company to pay this bonus. However, the company put forward the “Employee Handbook”, which provided that the year-end bonus would be paid in each March, and to the employees in service at that time. Then Mr. Zhao submitted the dispute to the labor arbitration committee, finally, the committee required the company to convert the year-end bonus based on the actual working hours of Mr. Zhao, and…

In the fierce competition, it is not uncommon to find that some enterprises have gone bankrupt. However, when signing a patent licensing contract (“PLC”), the relevant parties would seldom be aware of the risk related to the bankruptcy of the counter party. In fact, if the licensor has gone bankrupt, whether the licensee can continue to use the related patent? If the patent has been implemented continuously, what are the risks? The answer is uncertain. “Contract Law” has not stipulated the specific provisions on dealing with bankruptcy. However, according to “Bankruptcy Law” Article 18, the administrator shall have the right…

Due to the business need, Company A plans to relocate from the downtown to the suburbs, for which it has prepared some resettlement measures, such as the shuttle bus and etc.. However, some employees still refuse to be relocated with the company, they want to revoke the labor contract and require the financial compensation. Then how can such employers deal with the above issue? According to “Labor Contract Law” Article 40 and Article 46, which stipulate that the objective conditions taken as the basis for conclusion of the contract have greatly changed, so that the original labor contract cannot be…

Trademark Parallel Imports (“TPI”) refers to the owner of the registered trademark, or the other licensee has produced and sold the goods with the registered trademark in the export country, a third party (importer) imports the goods with the registered trademark to a third country (import country), but the owner of the registered trademark or the other licensee has also registered the same trademark in the import country. Follow up with the establishment of Shanghai Free Trade Zone and the overseas online shopping, the problems related to TPI become more and more serious. Especially for those multinational companies, TPI may…

Shortly after Mr. Q joined Company X, he suffered from melancholia. Company X was worried that Mr. Q’s illness might affect his work and other colleagues, so it terminated the labor contract with Mr. Q after he had been diagnosed. In addition, Company X paid the payment in lieu of notification and economic compensation. However, Mr. Q refused to accept Company X’s decision, and the dispute was brought to the arbitration committee and then the court, finally, the court made the judgment, which required Company X to resume the labor relation and arrange the payment for sick leave to Mr.…

In the patent infringement proceedings, the plaintiff applies for the declaration of the patent right invalid to the Patent Review Board (“PRB”) during the defense period, which is a common strategy. In the practice, when PRB has made a decision on declaring a patent right invalid, whether the court can dismiss the patentee’s claim on the decision date; or 3 months after the decision date, or upon the valid administrative order on affirming such decision, according to “Patent Law”, Article 46, paragraph 2? However, different courts, even different judges may make a different choice on dealing with such cases. Take…