2014 Christian Dior registered its J’adore perfume bottle as a 3D trademark and also an international registered trademark . Following the Madrid Agreement and the Madrid Protocol, Dior applied a territorial extension protection in China through the international bureau of WIPO. The TRAB of the SAIC rejected the application on July 13, 2015 with the reason of lack on distinctiveness. Dior filed a application for review of the refusal, but was also rejected with the same reason. After that, Dior submitted a administrative case to the court against TRAB’s decision, but failed by...

The picture shows the successful signing ceremony between our client Axess AG and OUDAO Vast Knowledge Ltd. during the Austria Connect in April 2018. The signing happens under eyes of the Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen , Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz and the President of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce Christoph Leitl and their delegation in Beijing .

Axess buys the majority shares of Oudao in order to intensify their growing business in China and being closer to their highly valued customers.

It was the first time, that an Austrian company will acquire...

Starke Manging Counsel Daniel Albrecht gave a keynote speech at the China ( Langfang ) Intelligent Connected Vehicle Summit & Sino-German Industry Strategic Cooperation Forum.

“Made in China 2025” initiative is the first ten-year action plan designed for China to implementing world leadership in manufacturing. “Industry 4.0” is Germany’s initiative to take the first place in the new global industrial revolution. The automobile industry is a pillar industry for both China and Germany and is invested and supported most by two countries as well. Both Chinese premier and German...

Starke Managing Counsel Daniel Albrecht took part in the panel of the EU Sino Round table discussion at 2018 March, 30th, Hilton Beijing. The event was co-organized with BenCham, EU SME center and ICI – Beijing B&R. The event was a great success. We discussed in front of over 60 attendees about the following two topics:

Topic #1: Breaking the clichés of development zones

When it comes to development zones, decision makers at enterprises, usually can't see the wood for the trees. The ones with limited China experience already have enough work to...

The definition of an unfair competition is given by the article 2 of the PCR Anti-Unfair Competition Law（反不正当竞争法). According to this article, an act of unfair competition is constituted when during production or distribution activities, a business operator disrupts the market competition order or infringes the legal rights and interests of other business operators or consumers.

Some unfair competition acts can be related to intellectual property such as the Article 6 which concerns the copy and imitation of brands and the Article 9 relating to the trade secrets. These articles...

The Shanghai Intellectual Property Court concluded a trademark infringement lawsuit raised by the French wine manufacturer Chateau Lafite against Shanghai Mellowines Development Co Ltd and its parent company Shanghai Safe International Logistics.

Chateau Lafite Rothschild owns the English trademark Lafite in China since 1997, and filed a trademark application for the Chinese version of Lafite, a decade later. Its application was first rejected by the SAIC and in 2017, the trademark registration was finally approved.

In May 2015, Lafite found that Shanghai Mellowines sold...

The Beijing IP court issued a judgement on 25. December 2017 in a case concerning graphical user interface (GUIs). The dispute is between Qihu, the plaintiff and its competitor Jiamin.

Qihu holds a design patent entitled “computer with GUI”, the patent protection included a computer which displayed the GUIs. Qihu claimed that the Jianmin Optimization Expert product used a GUI that was similar to one protected by its patents. In that respect, Qihoo requested the court to order the cessation of the infringement and sought compensation of RMB 10 millions for the damage suffered. The...

Since 2014, sound marks are registrable as a trademark in China after the amendment of the Trademark Law of the People’s Republic of China. Thus, start or ending songs of programs or musical advertisements can seek a protection by the Trademark Law. However, until 2018, only 21 sound marks were allowed to be registered out of a total of about 500 sound marks application.

BMW AG applied for a sound mark registration including a piece of instrumental used in commercial activities and at the end of BMW commercials. First, its application was rejected on grounds of the lack of...

Daniel Albrecht

When cyber security not only protects interests of the masses but ultimately also safeguards national sovereignty

In order to effectively address the challenges of attacks on IT systems, cybersecurity measures have been intensified internationally in the latest years. Germany, the EU and China have launched significant legislative initiatives in the last two years. However, the approach and the coverage of the regulations differ considerably in some areas.

I. Germany: IT Security Act ...

Lego Group sued two Chinese companies for manufacturing and selling products that were almost identical to ones from the Lego Friends range. The leading European toymaker claimed that the logo and the packaging used by the Chinese companies under the brand Bela constitute an infringement of the copyright in Lego Group’s logo and packaging.

The issue raised before the Court was whether products sold under the brand Bela infringe Lego’s copyrights, and in this direction, constitutes an act of unfair competition. On September 2017, the Shantou Intermediate People’s Court ruled in...

E-Commerce is a hot topic, and hence already widely discussed. This Seminar offers the opportunity, to not only learn about e-Commerce from a business point of view, but moreover find out about crucial aspects and challenges of e-Commerce from the perspective of Law.

Topic 1: Legal problems In the Chinese e-commerce market
- Entry models into the Chinese e-Commerce market
- Legal issues when entering the Chinese e-Commerce market
- IPR Protection
- Take Down-Procedure of online shops

Topic 2: E-Commerce Platforms like Tmall and...

With the development and usage of World Wide Web, mobile internet and mobile phones, the Chinese E-Commerce market got an enormous growth. According to “Chinese E-Commerce Market Data Monitoring Report 2016”, the E-Commerce transaction amount reached 22.97 trillion RMB in 2016.

For both Chinese and international enterprises, to join this market is a trend but also a necessity. As one of the mainly path for entering E-Commerce market, the meaning of domain name registration is therefore getting more and more important.

Worldwide exist 330 million registered domain names...