Rouse: IP China Express 340

" IP in China, dusk or dawn?"
Photo: Danny Friedmann

In the 340th IP China Express Rouse, the international IP business selected the following news items:

- Rubber products manufacturer Freudenberg victorious in a trademark conflict that has been going on since 2002. Finally the Trademark Appeal Board rejected the Chinese firm that wanted to register the same Freudenberg trademark.
-  Liu Binjie, head of the General Administration of Press and Publication, part of the National Copyright Administration, " with the rapid development and wide application of high technology (especially digital technology and network technology), the system of Copyright Law has faced formidable challenges" , therefore July 13, 2011, China has started to prepare its third amendment of its copyright law.
- Beijing First Intermediate People’s Court decided that Procter & Gamble's use ‘飘柔’ (Rejoice) in the Founder Qian typeface did not infringe Founder's copyright. Selling the software to Procter & Gamble implied consent that they could use it.
- Although Beijing-Shanghai High Speed ​​Rail was using technology imported from both the East Japan Railway Co. Ltd. and Kawasaki, the technology that it was seeking to patent was innovative. Therefore since 2009, China North Vehicle Group and China Academy of Railway Sciences have begun applying for patents abroad.
- Rouse also gives a summary of the 2006-2010 White Paper on Intellectual Property cases involving foreign parties published by Shanghai Second Intermediate People’s Court. Read IP Dragon's May 17, 2011 article about it here.

Read the Rouse's IP China Express here.

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Fast Technology Transfer/IPR Infringements Slows Down China's High Speed Train

Photo: Danny Friedmann
High-speed train just got slower.
Getting a ticket even more so.

Infringed intellectual property rights can have negative influences on society. During the manufacturing process of these goods labour and environmental minimum standards, already challenged in China, can be ignored without ever being checked. Then the products of the manufacturing process can cause real safety challenges to the public.

China's high profile high-speed trains were so rapidly developed without much consideration to foreign IPR rights, see here. Now it becomes clear that not only IPR infringements were condoned, but that some safety standards seem to have been skipped altogether too, see here.

The Railways Ministry announced that the trains now need to slow down from 218 miles per hour (350 kilometers per hour) to 186 miles per hour (almost 300 kilometers per hour).

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Tian Lipu: "No Plagiarism 'cause China's High Speed Rail Systems Climb Mountains"

At the 'Third Intellectual Property and Urban Development Mayor Forum', November 22, 2010, the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) commissioner Tian Lipu refuted allegations that China's high speed rail systems are based on plagiarism. See IP Dragon' article 'Knowledge Transfer in China: How To Train The Dragon To Consume You'.

Sina reports that China News Net was quoting Mr Tian saying:

"How can digesting other people's technology, combined with the adaptation to your own situation so that something new is created be plagiarism?"

An example of such an adaptation was given: China is allegedly the first country where the high speed systems can work in mountains.

Read the translated Sina article here, original here.

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Does China Export In Violation of License EU Train Technology Back To Europe?

Mr Philippe Mellier, CEO of Alstom Transport, the second manufacturer (after Bombardier Transportation) of high-speed trains, locomotives and metro cars, is calling on countries for a boycot of Chinese trains according to the Financial Times, here. In an interview Mr Mellier said that

• China was closing its domestic market;
• Chinese companies export trains that use foreign technologies.

The Associated Press said that the Financial Times suggested that these exports could be in violation of licensing agreements. Read here.

The spokesman of China's railway ministry Mr Wang Yongping has denied the allegations.

Mr Wang said that that Chinese companies paid foreign firms money for learning how to develop trains with average speeds of 300 kilometers per hour, but that China's new generation of high-speed trains which travel at 350 kilometers per hour were completely homegrown.

"This is the innovative results of our wholly owned intellectual property and there's no stealing of Western technology, " Mr Wang said according to Associated Press, read here.

France24's Owen Fairclough talks about it here in English: Don't buy Chinese trains, says Alstom Transport boss and his colleague Sébastien le Belzic in French, Alstom prône le boycott des trains "made in China".

Siemens, the number three high-spreed train manufacturer, has also problems with China,

Intellectual Property of German Train Gone With the Wind.

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