New Game: Claim To Have Organised A Conference You Did Not, Say Sorry And Pay RMB 1

Howell International Trade Fair Ltd. (Howell) organised events in China such as: China Game Developers Conference and ChinaJoy. Then United Business Media LLC (UBM), who organised the Game Developers Conference in the US, claimed to "have hosted alone or together with IDG the China Game Developers Conference 2007."

Howell sued UBM in 2009 before the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court. Because UBM did not register trademarks in China for Game Developers Conference or GDC, in First Instance the court ruled that UBM's claims on exclusive rights constitute dissemination of false propaganda. The penalty for dissemination of false propaganda in this case is interesting.

"UBM shall, within thirty days after the judgement becomes effective, publish an announcement in the magazine Computer Information World acknowledging UBM's anti-competitive business practices so as to eliminate the ill effects thereof and, also, within ten days after the judgement becomes effective, compensate Howell for damages in the nominal amount of RMB 1."

Sorry and RMB 1 ... WTF?

Is such a penalty a deterrent for other conference organizers for claiming events they did not organize? What conference organizers could take away from this judgment is that registering the name of your events as trademarks in the jurisdictions where you want to be active is a good idea.

Read the Sun Herald article here.

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Supreme People's Court Orders Full-compensation Principle in All IPR Cases

"Courts should fully apply logical reasoning and everyday life experiences, and comprehensively and objectively examine the evidence for calculating the amount of compensation," SPC vice-president Cao Jianming told a national work conference on IPR trials in Jinan on February 20, 2008, according to the China Daily.

I don't know if the order or encourgagement to reason logically can have meaningful results. I think this has to be taught during law school and afterwards during the education permanente necessary for every lawyer and judge. But it is clear that the Supreme People's Court wants the judges to take everything into account and be not too formalistic.

The compensation calculated in the case Yamaha versus Zhejiang Huatian is described as a model. Read more about the Yamaha case of last year here.

Read the article 'New rules on payouts in IPR cases' of the China Daily via China.org.cn, read here. Head tip to Mr Jeff Roberts of CIPP's "IP News This Week", your 5-minute report of the latest IP news from around the world, read here.

UPDATE: Mr Thomas Chow of China Esquire wrote about and referred to a case that was decided by the Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court and described by Mr Brad Luo of China Business Law Blog called 'G2000 v. 2000: Is 20 Million Yuan Enough for Trademark Infringement?', read here

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Supreme People's Court Awards Yamaha Highest Damages in Piracy Case

雅马哈

Shu-Ching Jean Chen wrote for Forbes the article 'Yamaha Copycat Crashes in Court'.

"The Chinese company, Zhejiang Huatian, registered a shell company in Japan’s remote Ishikawa prefecture in 2000 under the same three characters used by Yamaha to render its name in Chinese. This Japanese shell company then signed a licensing agreement with Zhejiang Huatian, allowing it to market its scooters in China under that name. Zhejiang Huatian went a step further by printing Yamaha’s name in English letters on its scooters. The Supreme People's Court awarded Yamaha the highest-ever damages for a piracy case in China involving a foreign investor, 8.3 million yuan ($1.1 million)."

Two local distributors, Taizhou Jiaji Motorcycle Distribution and Taizhou Huatian Motorcycle Distribution, were also found liable for their participation in the scheme.

Read Chen's article here.

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MPAA Victorious Against Shanghai Leying; So Far Damages Have Been Peanuts

So far three out of the seven American film production companies won in piracy cases in Shanghai, March 7, 2007. The Chinese Law Digest found this story in the Shanghai Youth Daily (Chinese):

"Initiated by the Motion Picture Association of America, seven American film production companies, including Warner Bros. sued Shanghai Leying Audio and Video Production Company for pirating movies, such as “Lord of the Rings I,” and claimed more than 3,430,000 RM in compensation."

'On March 6, the Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People’s Court issued a judgment on three cases, requiring that Leying stop selling pirated DVDs and compensate New Line Cinema in the amount of 7,000 RMB, Disney in the amount of 12,000 RMB, and Warner Bros. in the amount of 6,000 RMB. Another court session will hear the four other cases.'

The China Law Digest is a bilingual, monthly web digest detailing the latest news and developments on contemporary Chinese law and legal scholarship (including sometimes intellectual property law). You can get a free subscription here.

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