Institute for Internet Policy & Law @ Beijing Normal University

Fiyat spokesman said their legal tem in Turin were assessing the possiblity of suing Greatwall Automobile for infringing the design patent of Fiyat “Panda” cars. Greatwall denied the infringement charge and insisted that its “Spirit” cars were independently designed by its internal designers. Spirit cars are going to be sold in Italian market in the second half of 2007.

http://msn.ynet.com/view.jsp?oid=17976399

There have been several disputes over automobile design patents between international car manufactures (such as Toyota and General Motors) and booming Chinese car industry (Geely and QQ). Report for Toyota v. Geely case is at http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200311/24/eng20031124_128904.shtml.

By the end of 2006, China has more than 20 million Internet traders doing various business online. Most of them are one-person business and credibility has become a primary concern for consumers.

http://discovery.ynet.com/view.jsp?oid=17979106

The Minister of Justice, Mr. Zhang Sujun, emphasizes the importance of administrative sanction against piracy in an interview with the Journal of 21st Century. His talk just followed the recent release of the USTR Assessment Report on China’s WTO Committment, which labels intellectual property protection as one of areas that have fallen back or slowed down the reform.

http://tech.sina.com.cn/it/2006-12-14/09431288065.shtml

Philips settled a series of invalidation disputes over its DVD patent on “the method and device of eceiving and dispatching codified datum”. Philips agrees not to enforce its patent in China on the condition that 5 applicants withdraw their patent invalidation applications from China IPO. This is merely an insignificant patent in the patent pool on DVD manufacture owned by 6C and unlikely to noticeably decrease the patent burden on the China’s DVD enterprises.

http://tech.sina.com.cn/it/2006-12-10/22411280685.shtml

Skype has got more than 29 million Chinese registrants, most of whom can only use the computer-to-computer service (Skype in model). The popular Skype-out service was not offered in the Chinese market due to the strict telecom regulation. Recently, Skype, though its local partner Tom.com, began quietly offering Internet Telephony services to those registrants who may pay by international credit cards. It seems that Skype attempts to test the water by partially opening its VoIP service in China.

http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2006-11-30/15071265004.shtml