Summary of Committee Panel in Sep. Membership Meet...
Summary of Committee Panel in Sep. Membership Meeting
The Committee Panel was held in the afternoon of Sep. 23rd, 2011. Mr. Ewen Turner, QBPC vice chair, moderated the first panel. Mr. Pei Jun, vice chair of BPEC firstly introduced the recent BPEC activities including Guangxi ECID, Anhui ECID and QBPC IP Criminal Protection Training in Shenyang on July 25 and August 23. Then Mr. Pei Jun made a report on 3rd Exchange Meeting between Economy Crime Investigation Department of Ministry of Public Security (MPS/ECID) and FIEs in Beijing on September 16. In the end, Pei Jun introduced the upcoming event of Meeting with Guangdong Provincial PSB ECID.
During the Q&A, Pei Jun made some explanation on the two requests of Director Gao Feng from MPS. One is building a Fast Certification Channel between QBPC and MPS/ECID. The other is QBPC members to express their opinion on the website of Sharp Swords Action.
GCC’s vice chair Kelvin Liu introduced the on-going events and update information of exchange meeting with SIPO jointly held with our Dec. membership meeting. The projects on going include: Chinese Delegation US Visit and IP Panel Discussion on IPR protection best practice sharing and its impact on bilateral economic development, SIPO's Request for QBPC members’ participation in its IPR Protection Satisfaction Survey (Oct.), SIPO Delegation Visit on to Germany, Netherland, Italy About Legalization & Notarization of POA and Evidence. As to the SIPO-QBPC IPR Strategy Implementation Information Exchange Meeting, GCC has already held a meeting to discuss the details with SIPO’s responsible leaders.
In the panel Mr. Chris Cosgrove, Customs Committee’s vice chair, reviewed the results of the Urumqi Customs training Workshop took place on September 5, 2011 where 24 QBPC member companies presented to 79 new Customs officials from Urumqi Customs, Xining Customs, Lanzhou Customs, Yinchuan Customs, Lasa Customs plus 25 veteran officials from Urumqi Customs.
Chris also introduced the plans for the proposed CUSTOMS BEST PRACTICES FORUM, and proposed topics including “Interacting with Customs”, “Training material content”, and benchmarking proposals of shape & composition of member’s IPR Custom teams. The proposed workshop also will include interactive presentation of Member’s Customs cases and an open discussion of Customs issues. The date for the meeting has not been set, but they are hoping for late November.
Mr. Jack Chang, QBPC Chairman, moderated the second panel. Mr. David Shen made an introduction on Patent Committee’s past, on-going and up-coming events. The events including IP Tribunal with Shanghai High Court focused on Art 16 of the Patent Law, a research and analysis of current China patent portfolio distribution, ownership, lifecycle, quality, etc., seminar with All China Patent Agent Association (ACPAA) which focused on Art. 26 (3) and (4) and IP Tribunal with Beijing High People’s Court which focused on the opinions concerning the determination of patent infringement drafted by Beijing High People’s Court. At last, David welcomed all members’ active participation in and comments about Patent and Innovation Committee activities.
Mr. Yun Xuan, Chairman of Legal Committee, Mr. Michael Yu, Vice Chairman of the Legal Committee, made a report about the Legal Committee’s activities in the past few months, especially the third amendment to the Trademark Law and the Amendment to the Code of Criminal Procedure. The panel discussion was made up of the Legal Committee and the Patent and Innovation Committee.
I The Third Amendment to the Trademark Law
Most of the members are concerned about the legal issues related to the trademark, therefore the Legal Committee has been paying great attention to the third amendment to the Trademark Law since the revision work started. The Legal Committee has been seeking the cooperation with the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) and the State Council Legislative Affairs Office(SCLAO). This year, the main work by the Legal Committee is to follow the latest Amendment to the Trademark Law drafted by the SCLAO and solicited the members’ comments and compiled the members’ comments into QBPC position paper submitted to the SCLAO for their reference when revising the Trademark Law. The specific performance is as follows:
1. Based on the QBPC comments on the draft Amendment to the Trademark Law by SAIC in 2010, QBPC had been attaching much importance to its revision progress. This year, the Legal Committee initiated a project on the amendment to the Trademark Law with the SCLAO. Ms. Heart Chen, the Vice Chairman of the Legal Committee, Mr. Michael Yu, and the Vice Chairman of the Legal Committee are in charge of this project and did a lot of coordination work with the SCLAO; Mr. Jack Chang, QBPC Chairman, Mr. Jason Yao, QBPC Vice Chairman, Mr. Yun Xuan, Chairman of the Legal Committee, and Ms. Tracy Yang, QBPC Legal Specialist provided great support in the project.
2. On September 2, 2011, the Legal Committee quickly worked out a comparison table, including the 2011 draft Amendment to the Trademark Law by SCALO, the 2010 draft Amendment to the Trademark Law by the SAIC and the current Trademark Law, engaged the professional translation company to do the translation, and provided the English version of the comparison table to members for their comments and knowing about the progress of revising the Trademark Law. QBPC is the quickest one among the IP organizations home and abroad which took action. This comparison table in Chinese and English is highly praised by many professional IP organizations;
3. Up to this membership meeting, about 20 members provided their professional comments and suggestion on the 2011 draft Amendment to the Trademark Law by SCLAO. Based on this comments and suggestion, the Legal Committee quickly compiled them into QBPC position paper and would update it after the workshop on the Amendment to the Trademark Law with SCALO and the SAIC was held on September 27 in Beijing and submit the updated QBPC position paper to SCLAO;
4. As for the 2011 draft Amendment to the Trademark Law by SCLAO, the members’ comments are as follows: the definition of the trade mark, the establishment of the principle of good faith, well-known trademark recognition and protection, opposition proceedings, trademark renewals, trademark use, new types of the trademark infringement, administrative authority, civil damages, the legal status and right to know of the trademark owner in administrative enforcement cases;
5. Some member representatives raised the questions on the trademark renewal and the administrative enforcement, and the electronic application for trademark registration and other issues, and got the reply from the speakers.
II. The Amendment to the Code of the Criminal Procedure
IP criminal protection is one issues that QBPC members are especially concerned about, however, the existing provisions related to acceptance of the criminal cases under the of the Criminal Procedure Law is not suitable for an increasingly complex intellectual property criminal enforcement under the new situation and new features, the Legal Committee has been concerned about the latest revised version of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Mr. Yun Xuan, Chairman of the Legal Committee, George Li, Vice Chairman of the Legal Committee took care of this project, and has been supported by Mr. Jack Chang, QBPC Chairman.
1. In early September, the Legal Committee selected the articles related to the IP protection under the Draft Amendment to the Code of the Criminal Procedure, did the translation a, and timely sent to the members for their comments suggestion;
2. As for the Draft Amendment to the Code of the Criminal Procedure, the members provided the following comments and suggestion, focusing on: strengthening safeguarding the right to information and participation of the victim, the private prosecutor and the party to the criminal cases with civil litigation; further improving the system of criminal evidence; establishing a more scientific conditions for accepting the criminal cases; allowing the victim in the IP criminal cases to bring the criminal incidental civil action; newly additional settlement system to be used in the field of criminal cases; it should be clearly stipulated that the defendant's property should be used to first pay the compensation in the criminal incidental civil action if the compensation and the property penalty co-exist.
3. Based on the members’ comments and suggestion, the Legal Committee would compile them into QBPC position paper and timely submit it to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.
III. Other activities
1. Together with the BPEC and Customs Committee, the Legal Committee finished the QBPC position paper on the case transfer between the administrative enforcement and the criminal enforcement and submitted the QBPC position paper to the Supreme People's Procuratorate(SPP) in August, 2011;
2. Together with the SPC IP tribunal, the Legal Committee initiated a project on the IP Infringement on the Internet;
3. updated the QBPC contract management and the compliance projects;
4. Project with Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court on the judicial practice of IP protection related to the unfair competition;
5. Follow up with other laws and regulations revision, etc..