Legal Notebook

The operator of a WeChat official account forwarded an article of another WeChat official account without authorization, and be deemed as infringing the other operator’s copyright, including the right of authorship, the right to modify, network dissemination of information and remuneration. Finally, the defendant operator was ordered to issue public apology and compensate RMB 1 Yuan to the plaintiff operator. People are accustomed to forward articles by WeChat, why such action shall be deemed as an infringement? Where is the boundary between the fair use and infringement? In order to keep ourselves from infringing others’ right, or protect ourselves from…

Company B filed a lawsuit against Company A on the infringement of trade secrets, and the court of the first instance ruled in the favor of B. Whereat, B released a piece of news on its website, said that A might bear a huge amount of compensation for the infringement of trade secrets, and uploaded the verdict of the first instance. Then A‘s sales dropped heavily. Shortly, in order to obtain the project of Company C, B sent the verdict to C by email, after internal discussion, C notified A on the termination of negotiation. A filed a lawsuit against…

Zhang took an “Unlicensed Taxi” from his home to the company, the “Unlicensed Taxi” was crushed by another car, and Zhang was injured in the accident. Then, Zhang applied for the determination of the work-related injury, however, the company said that the “Unlicensed Taxi” did not have the qualification to run business, so it should not be determined as the work-related injury. Zhang applied to a labor dispute arbitration committee for arbitration, and finally, the committee supported his claim. According to “Social Insurance Law” and “Regulation on Work-Related Injury Insurances “(“Regulation”), the no-fault liability principle shall be applied in the…

In order to solve the difficulties in the determination of work-related injuries, the newly issued “Provisions” has highly summarized and further refined the problems exposed in practice after the implementation of the “Work Injury Insurance Regulations”. The highlights of the “Provisions” include: Refine the requirements of ” due to work, working hours and workplace” The burden of proof inversion has been applied in proving “due to work”, that is, if the employer has no evidence to prove irrelevant to performing duties within the working hours and the workplace, that would be regarded as “due to work”. Working hours and workplace…

Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of points, lines, planes and all kinds of geometrical figures, which is aimed to demonstrate the specific technical solutions. Therefore, in view of the form and essence of the drawing, the designer or other right holder shall have different menthods to protect the drawing. Firstly, from the view of the form of the drawing, it can be protected as a copyright when it meets the requirements of “Copyright Law”. “Copyright Law” Article 3 has listed the forms of “works”, and drawings of engineering designs and product designs are listed in…

In 2008, Company A purchased a set of equipment from Company B, but it failed to pay the rest 50% payment on time. After Company B’s requests for several times, Company A agreed to make the payment by a bank acceptance. However, when Company A applied the bank acceptance, the bank said that the bank acceptance would be issued upon the contract and invoice within 1 year. Company A asked Company B to sign a “fake contract” for the rest 50% payment, and issue the corresponding invoice. Company B was eager to collect the rest payment, so it did as…

Embedded software refers to the computer software, written to control machines or devices on site or remotely by embedding software, which shall be an invisible component of machines or devices, and shall be delivered with them. In practice, where the price of a machine is pretty high, both parties would adopt an installment payment. It is not abnormal for the buyer to pay in arrears after the seller has delivered the machine. In view of the time and cost for arbitration or lawsuit, and the execution difficulties occasionally, some sellers try to use embedded software for dunning, which says that…

Company A and Mr. Yu had made a non-disclosure agreement, in which stipulated a non-competition clause. After resigned, Yu joined Company B, a competitor of A. A deemed that Yu had violated the non-competition clause, and disclosed its trade secret to B, which helped B to enhance its competitive advantage. Thus, A brought a lawsuit against Yu on unfair competition, due to Yu’s breach of non-competition clause. However, the court dismissed A’s claim. Why did the court dismiss A’s claim? In this case, Yu’s two actions belong to two different legal relations. Yu has breached the non-competition clause by joined…

Recently, the writer has dealt with an ownership dispute related to a patent. A resigned from the original employer, established a new company dealing with the similar business as the original employer, and took the role as the legal representative of this new company. Although he had never participated in R&D, when the new company applied for patent, he named himself as the inventor. Unexpectedly, the original employer claimed for the patent right in terms of service invention. Whether the original employer’s claim could be affirmed by the court, it depends. However, the right of authorship of the inventor is…

Mr Lee sent items with a value of 20,000 Yuan by ZTO Express Company (hereinafter referred to as “ZTO”). He wrote the goods name, specifications, quantity on the express waybill, but he did not pay for the insurance. Unfortunately, the items were lost. Lee asked ZTO for compensation with express waybill and invoice of the items, however, ZTO only agreed to compensate part of the loss, and the amount should be calculated as several times of the express fee, in accordance with the “Postal Law” or Delivery Notice. Lee sued to the court, and the court determined that ZTO should…