Posts Tagged: "China"

On February 4, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a major piece of legislation known as the America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology, and Economic Strength (COMPETES) Act of 2022, which is the House’s counterpart to the U.S. Senate’s United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021. While both bills are designed to improve America’s competitiveness in several key technology areas over foreign economic rivals, especially China, some IP advocates are pointing out that the bill provides little more than lip service on protecting American IP rights against Chinese infringers.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today announced in an unpublished Federal Register Notice that it has established an administrative process for investigating submissions filed with the USPTO in trademark matters that appear to violate the Trademark Rules of Practice. The announcement comes as part of the USPTO’s broader effort to improve the integrity of the U.S. trademark register amid a surge in fraudulent filings, largely from China.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office yesterday published a final rule implementing the Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 (TMA), which was signed into law as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020 last year. The new regulations go into effect on December 18, 2021, except for the implementation of the shorter response period for office actions, which will go into effect on December 1, 2022.

On October 16, 2021, as I contemplated lessons from my nine years in China, the Financial Times broke a story that rocked the world—especially the U.S. military: “China tests new space capability with hypersonic missile.” China’s recent launch of a nuclear-capable rocket that circled the globe at high speed “took US intelligence by surprise.” Military experts quickly noticed that Chinese innovation in hypersonic weapons “was far more advanced than US officials realised.” As I’ve seen happen many times in coverage on innovation in China, our mainstream media is now downplaying China’s achievement (“not much of a surprise,” per the New York Times, and nothing but old Russian technology per Foreign Policy). It’s similar to the objections raised for decades about IP and innovation in China: low quality, just copying, nothing to be worried about. Yet in industry after industry, China is taking a leadership position in technology and its international patents that can’t be won by copying. It comes from leading.

In compliance with the Phase One Trade Agreement, China has implemented a patent linkage system in their amended patent law, which became effective June 1, 2021 (Article 76 of the Patent Law of the People’s Republic of China (2020)). The Chinese patent linkage system prevents marketing approval of generic drugs until after the expiration of patents covering the drugs or uses. Specifically, the Center for Drug Evaluation (CDE) of the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) has set up a registration system to register patents covering: chemical drugs and uses; traditional Chinese medicines (TCM) and uses; and biologics: Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) sequence structure and medical use. The registration system started public testing in May and is now live.

We’ve all seen him when driving by the strip mall. Trying to focus on the traffic, our eyes are diverted by “Tube Man,” a 10-foot tall hollow, collapsible stick figure with a fan at the bottom, adjusted so that the body repeatedly folds and then jumps upright, with arms whipping around in a constant frenzy, trying to grab our attention. And that’s the point. Tube Man accomplishes nothing except to demand that we look at what he’s doing…. And that, in my view, describes very well the recent rush of legislative attempts to punish China. That is not to say that China is our best friend. We are in serious competition, and it’s obvious that our leading position in some critical technologies has been targeted. That “giant sucking sound” you hear in the direction of China may be some cutting-edge secrets being displaced. We should be deeply concerned. We need a thoughtful, long-term strategy to respond.

Friends is one of the most beloved American shows. The characters and the scenes from the series have remained in the heart of fans for almost two decades. The last episode aired nearly 17 years ago, but recently the cast gathered for a special episode titled “Friends Reunion.” This was also loved by fans across the world who watched the series. The exclusive streaming and broadcasting rights were conferred upon HBO Max for five years. In the countries, where HBO Max does not operate, these rights were sold to different channels and Over-the-Top (OTT) media service platforms such as the OTT giant Zee5 in India.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative’s (USTR’s) 2021 Special 301 Report, published late last month, brought into sharp relief one of the ongoing issues the United States has with China. The country was again listed on its “Priority Watch List” in this annual review of the state of intellectual property (IP) protection and enforcement in the United States’ international trading partners, and the report explained that the United States remains unsatisfied with China’s failure to grant IP protection and enforcement to foreign rights holders. On the surface, very little is surprising about the USTR’s statement concerning China’s approach to the enforcement of IP rights. By now, China’s failures in the context of IP enforcement are a well-known refrain in the Western media. But dig beneath the surface, and the statement raises a multiplicity of issues that have gone unaddressed. Which IP rights are at issue? Whose IP rights are not being enforced? Should one country enforce the IP rights of the citizens of another country? If so, how and in what way does it do that? Last but not least, has the United States enforced the IP rights of the citizens of other countries?

On March 16, the European Patent Office (EPO) released the Patent Index 2020, which gives the public a snapshot view of the filing activities going on at the EU’s patent granting agency during the past year. Total patent application filings declined only slightly during 2020 to just over 180,000 patent applications, a reduction of 0.7% compared to the EPO’s 2019 patent filing totals. Despite a 4.1% decrease in patent application filings at the EPO, the United States still held the top spot among individual countries with 44,293 EPO patent filings. Patent application filing totals also dropped in Germany (down 3% to 25,954 filings) and Japan (down 1.1% to 21,841). The United States, Germany and Japan were ranked first, second and third, respectively, in the EPO Patent Index 2020.

Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) yesterday introduced the “Protecting American Innovation and Development (PAID) Act of 2021,” a bill that would give the U.S. Department of Commerce authority to hold accountable bad-actor Chinese companies that refuse to pay licensing and royalty fees to free-market developers of wireless technologies. Covered by standard essential patents (SEPs).

On January 11, Brian Pomper, Executive Director of the Innovation Alliance, sent a letter to President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris urging support for strong patent rights and outlining Innovation Alliance’s recommendations with respect to the U.S. patent system and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The letter emphasized the importance of a strong patent system that incentivizes technological advancement in order to effectively compete with China and explained that the current system is in distress and strong leadership is needed.  

On January 13, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a new report on the impact of patent and trademark filing trends in China. The report, titled Trademarks and Patents in China: The Impact of Non-Market Factors on Filing Trends and IP Systems, discusses how the high rate of Chinese patent and trademark filings may well be influenced by government subsidies and other non-market factors, rather than inventiveness and organic economic activity within China.

Judge Rodney Gilstrap of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas yesterday issued an order enjoining  Samsung Electronics from taking any action to interfere with Ericsson’s U.S. FRAND (“fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory” terms) lawsuit against Samsung in his court. Samsung had filed a lawsuit on December 7, 2020 in the Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court of China but did not provide notice to Ericsson of the action. “Unaware of the Chinese Action,” according to Judge Gilstrap’s order, Ericsson filed a complaint against Samsung on December 11, 2020 in the Texas court, alleging that Samsung breached its obligation to license its Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) on FRAND terms, and “notified Samsung of its Complaint in this Court that same day.” Samsung subsequently asked the Wuhan court to issue an “anti-suit injunction” (ASI) to prevent it from seeking relief relating to the SEPs at issue anywhere else in the world. The Wuhan Court issued the ASI on December 25 for the “duration of the Chinese Action and until a future judgment in that Action becomes effective.” The Wuhan Court gave Ericsson notice of the ASI after it had issued on December 25. Ericsson thus asked the Texas Court for an emergency temporary restraining order (TRO) on December 28, which the court granted.

In contrast to his one time colleague, former Federal Circuit Chief Judge Randall Rader earlier this month filed a Declaration supporting Samsung Electronics in its Opposition to Ericsson, Inc.’s Application for Anti-Interference Injunction relating to Samsung’s lawsuit in the Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court of China. Retired Federal Circuit Judge Paul Michel recently filed an amicus brief supporting Ericsson in the case and calling into question the procedures of the Wuhan court.

Earlier today, Judge Rodney Gilstrap of the United States Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued a temporary restraining order against Samsung in a FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing rates) lawsuit filed by Ericsson on December 11, 2020. The Order gives Samsung until January 1, 2021 to file any opposition to the continuation of the temporary restraining order, and gives Ericsson until January 5, 2021 to respond if, or more likely when, Samsung, files an objection. At first glance to the trained eye this seems shocking, but as is so often the case in the world of standard essential patents (SEPs) and FRAND, there is much more than meets the eye.