Friday, January 11, 2008

Service Of Process in China... eeh People's Republic of China

In case you want to sue an IP infringer that has residence in China from your own country, you can make use of the Convention on Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil and Commercial Matters, The Hague, November 15, 1965. Although China is a convention member state, it deals in a very strict way with service requests from abroad.

Geert Theuws, an attorney-at-law, found out that the legal translation company translated People's Republic of China into China, which meant return to sender, because this country name is not deemed correct in they eyes of the Chinese authorities. So make sure you got all the formalities right, including the right address on the letter and envelope; street, street number, zip code, city, province and last but not least the People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国) in stead of just China.

Thanks Geert.

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