Effective immediately, the new official seal used on GI and its products will be adopted as follows:

The prior seal used on the GI and its products will be aborted and the transition period of using it will last till December 31, 2020.

(Source: CNIPA official website)

At the 59^th WIPO Member States Meeting recently held, more than 1,200 delegates from WIPO's 193 Member States gathered to discuss and reach consensus on a wide range of topics, such as the WIPO work plan for 2020-2021 and the related budgets. The number of international treaties added, which will be managed by WIPO, has reached a new high. During the meeting, 7 Member States had submitted 11 letters of accession or ratification.

Vietnam has joined the international industrial design system and became the 61^st member of the Hague System. Samoa has joined “the Patent Cooperation Treaty”, “the Hague Agreement”, and “the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement on Appellations of Origin and GI”; Trinidad and Tobago joined “the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances” and became the 28th member, which will be able to enter into force after 30 members have joined.

(Source: China Intellectual Property News)

Recently, WIPO released the 2019 Annual Report of the World IP Indicators (WIPI) in Geneva, Switzerland.

According to the report, US residents had submitted 230,085 applications for the equivalent patents overseas in 2018 and continued to lead the world; China went after Japan, Germany and South Korea, ranked 4^th in the world with 66,429 applications. In addition, about 30% of the valid patents of China were filed by foreign applicants.

In 2018, there were approximately 65,900 effective GIs worldwide, of which China ranked 2^nd in the world with 7,247 pieces. The effective GIs associated with wine and spirits accounted for approximately 51.1% of the world total in 2018, followed by agricultural products and food (29.9%) and handicrafts (2.7%). In 2018, China had more than 100 valid GIs for handicrafts.

In addition, the report showed that, in 2018, global innovators had submitted a total of 3.3 million invention patent applications, making it the 9^th consecutive year of growth with an increase of 5.2%; also, the global trademark applications increased to 14.3 million; industrial design applications reached 1.3 million; and the global plant variety applications reached 20,210 pieces, up 8.9%.

(Source: China IP News)

Case Summary:

Baihetan Hydroelectric Dam is in the mainstream of the lower reaches of the Jinsha River in both Sichuan and Yunnan Province. It is the first-class hydroelectric dam in the “Yangtze River Basin Comprehensive Planning (2012-2030)” approved by the State Council. It is also the world’s largest hydroelectric dam under construction.

Defendant A, the 8^th Hydropower Engineering and Construction Co. Ltd. Of Sinohydro, was contracted for the civil construction and metal structure installation on the right bank of the Baihetan Hydroelectric Dam. In order to implement the installation of the gate groove to seal the bottom hole in the right bank dam project, defendant A used the “doorway hydraulic self-climbing formwork trolley” device manufactured and sold by defendant B - Beijing Zhuoliang Formwork Co., Ltd.

The plaintiff, Chengdu Alang Technology Co., Ltd. is the right holder of the No. ZL201310018684.3 invention patent, entitled “A construction method and device for gate slot”, they believed that the two defendants had constituted patent infringement, so that they initiated litigation at the Intermediate People’s Court of Changsha City. The case number is (2018) Hunan Province Civil First Instance No.7000.

Unitalen Attorneys at Law represented the defendant in response to the charge.

The Court’s Ruling:

On August 21, 2019, Unitalen received the No. 41305 Invalidation Decision issued by the National Intellectual Property Patent Reexamination and Invalidation Department, which confirmed that all the rights in No. ZL201310018684.3 patent are invalid.

On September 9, 2019, the Changsha Intermediate People's Court issued the civil judgement that it’s allowed for Chengdu Alang Technology Co., Ltd. to withdraw the lawsuit.

Herewithin, Unitalen helped the defendant win a comprehensive victory of this patent infringement and invalidation case. This case is a typical case of applying Paragraphs 3 and 4, Article 26 of the Patent Law to invalidate patents successfully. 　　

On September 23, Unitalen senior partner Zhao Lei was appointed as the new co-chair of China Global Advisory Council (GAC) at the INTA Council Meeting.

Mr. Zhao Lei will perform professional duties during his term of 2020-2021, including providing advices and suggestions to INTA Chairman and CEO, advocating for regional policy development or addressing hot issues, promoting cross-industry exchanges and liaison, as well as participation in relevant work projects and seminars, so as strengthen the close relationship between the Chinese trademark community and international counterparts, and promote IP protection.

On October 19th, the “2019 Tongji China-Europe Innovation and Competition Forum” was held at the Shanghai International IP College of Tongji University. The theme of this forum was “Data, IP and Antitrust”.

Li Wenhong, Director of Unitalen Shanghai branch, attended the forum and delivered a speech with case studies on corporate data protection in China to show the exploration and experiences in judicial practice.

During the forum, Professor Dietmar Harhoff, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Germany, made a special trip to the Shanghai Branch of Unitalen. Li Wenhong and the other Unitalen partners warmly received the visiting expert and conducted a meeting for both sides to exchange ideas on the changes of IP policy and other hot topics.

On October 24^th, Unitalen held the “Patent Invalidation, Early Warning Analysis and International Patent Protection Training” for biomedical enterprises in Chengdu High-tech Zone.

Mr. Wu Shuchen, Unitalen partner, a member expert of the Supreme People’s Court IP Guiding Cases (Beijing) Expert Consulting Committee, shared his thought on the importance of patent invalidation for pharmaceutical companies with observation of the 2008-2018 patent invalidation case statistics and study of the Top 10 patent reexamination cases.

Dr. Peng Kunpeng, Unitalen partner, a patent attorney and a professional trainer of the All-China Patent Agents Association (ACPAA), gave training to the participating companies on the topic of “high-value patents and overseas patents for biomedical companies”. It also deeply interprets and analyzes the FTO infringement risk analysis and patentability analysis that attracts high attention of the industry.

At invitation, Unitalen partners Dr. Pan Wei and Mr. Zheng Bin participated in the “WIPO - Tongji University Master of Laws program" to deliver lectures in English to the freshmen of 2019.

Tongji University is the first and only university in China to cooperate with WIPO in providing joint training for a graduate program. This is also the third consecutive year that Unitalen lawyers was invited to teach at the program.

Dr. Pan Wei has extensive experience in international patent agency business. He interpreted the procedural requirements and substantive requirements of European patent law in his lecture; and analyzed the strategies and considerations for patent application in Europe. In addition, Dr. Pan Wei explained the ideas and practices of industry design protection in Europe.

Mr. Zheng Bin has a deep understanding of Chinese patent practice, as well as the in-depth knowledge of US and Europe patent offices practice in the field of biomedicine with extensive experience in foreign-involved patent applications. In the lectures, he introduced the practice of IP protection in the field of medicine in China and abroad with substantial case studies.