Posts Tagged: "China"

Before selling your product outside the United States, you need to take into account the vastly different cultural and market preferences outside the country. As anyone who has ever gone into an international supermarket knows, packaging, taste and product selection can differ greatly from what is available on shelves in the U.S. You need to conduct some market research to ascertain the depth of product demand before making the leap. Some countries may be culturally similar to the United States, and your product would only require minor modifications. Additionally you will need to develop relationships with local distributors, which can be another substantial hurdle to overcome. Before investing millions in manufacturing your product for an international market, you will want to conduct this extensive research.

Near the end of her presentation Bartow asked a particularly enlightening question. If China can crackdown so thoroughly on its citizens why couldn’t they crackdown on intellectual property infringement and IP crimes? She explained: “Because it isn’t in their interest.” Bartow explained that in the Chinese view it doesn’t make sense to change their view of intellectual property rights because so many within the country are becoming wealthy as a direct result of widespread intellectual property infringement. Bartow ended by saying that as long as this is the view of intellectual property it will be difficult to attract the companies that they really want to attract.

The new service will allow the USPTO and the SIPO, with appropriate permissions, to obtain electronic copies of priority documents filed with the other office from its electronic records management system at no cost to the applicant. With this new service, applicants will no longer need to obtain and file paper copies of the priority documents; however, they are still responsible for ensuring that priority documents are provided in a timely manner.

Even with the discretionary substantive examination in a utility model patent application, they are generally much easier to obtain and much cheaper to get. There may also be advantages to utility model patents in China. While the fact that they are not substantively examined might make it seem that they would be easier to invalidate, that isn’t the case in reality. Under the Chinese system a maximum of 2 references can be used to fashion an obviousness rejection. “In our industry there is rarely a silver bullet,” Moga explained. It is certainly true that obviousness is the real hurdle to patentability and it is extremely common to see obviousness rejections in the U.S. that weave 3 or more references together to provide the foundation for an obviousness rejection.

On Friday, October 3, 2014, the University of Toledo College of Law will host a one-day seminar titled “Doing Business in China.” One of the goals of Doing Business in China is to refute myths regarding intellectual property protection in China and to provide an attorney or business person sufficient information to begin the risk assessment with respect to whether China represents a good strategic investment for a small-to-mid-size business. A highlight of the program will be a presentation on cross-cultural communication and negotiation for businesses and attorneys who will work with the Chinese counter parts with a discussing on how to avoid miscues and miscommunication.

As a result of filing the world’s highest number of patent applications, China is often attacked for trading in quality for quantity. However, Michael Lin of Marks&Clerk explains that a better understanding of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) and the Chinese patent system shows that patent quality is in fact, not declining but increasing.

Employers often spend considerable resources recruiting, hiring and training key talent, only to face potential disaster when those trusted employees quit to join a competitor, often taking sensitive files on their way out the door. Even if they don’t act in bad faith, departing employees carry critical, confidential information inside their heads, which can’t be deleted. Fortunately, various remedies may be available for the former employer, from confidentiality and non-competition agreements, to lawsuits for actual or threatened misappropriation of trade secrets and the doctrine of inevitable disclosure. But there’s a conflict. Employers have a legitimate interest in preventing misappropriation of trade secrets, while employees have a legitimate interest in utilizing knowledge and skills gained through work experience and working for employers of their choosing.