Institute for Internet Policy & Law @ Beijing Normal University

Thailand government issued compulsory licenses against the patents for HIV drugs, which make its country into the Special 301 priority watch list of the USTR.

http://news.findlaw.com/ap/o/51/06-07-2007/fe89006df9516353.html

Italian authority did the same thing to reduce the costs of medicines for the reason of antitrust. If high prices of patent products could be deemed as a cause of unacceptable monopoly, developing countries would enjoy much more flexibility in coping with technical innovation and public health crisis.

http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/twninfohealth086.htm

Since 1990s, every April has been a month of “war of words” between the USA and China on IPR disputes. In these years, angry rhetoric of discontent could be heard from both parties. But either party had ever meant business. They either commenced a new round of negotiation or threatened to each other with trade sanctions. Eventually, the disputes would end up in compromise. This year is different. USA filed the complaint against China to the WTO, specifically alleging China for ineffective IPR enforcement and restriction of importation of American culture products. Chinese government has declared that the US’s action will seriously damage the trade relationship between the two countries. The disputes, in the WTO dispute settlement procedure, is in 60-day of negotiation period. If no agreement cannot be reached, the disputes would have to be decided by a panel.

http://finance.sina.com.cn/j/20070410/14093488196.shtml

China used the first provision of the TRIPS to defend itself.

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2007-06-09/182613191693.shtml

60-day negotiation period expired, no agreement was reached. On August 31, US applied to set up a panel to solve the dispute. The Panel might be set up in October 2007.

http://finance.sina.com.cn/j/20070831/05143934387.shtml

Chinese enterprises are going overseas, so are the litigation against them. Imitation of foreign designs, brands or technologies might be a good starting-up strategy but it could become a time bomb once globalizing the business.

A couple of digital products of Chinese companies were seized at Hanover’s CeBIT2007 for patent infringement. A leading MP3 producer, Huaqi, complained that it did pay patent licensing fee for the chips and should not be charging for using the chips on products. MII has published a report to alert the domestic manufactures of intellectual property risk in the international market. A index of key technologies and important products under the independent intellectual property rights of China’s information industry has been released as a component of the national intellectual property strategy.

http://tech.sina.com.cn/it/2007-04-04/02071447415.shtml

http://tech.sina.com.cn/focus/07_CeBIT_MP3/index.shtml

Another group of German businesses are watching the Chinese competitors. Both BMW and DaimlerChrysler have sued or plan to sue the alleged copies by Chinese automakers that are entering into German market.
http://news.findlaw.com/ap/o/51/09-12-2007/4a93001192274c0a.html

At the beginning of 2007, “Giant Panda” was the most damaging virus spreading on the net. After the virus spreaders were captured by the police, a series of illegal business were disclosed. Once the virus was created, it was posted on the net for sale. The purchasers may then hack into the victims’ compute to steal their personal information. The following step would be selling the stolen information online.

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/l/2007-02-16/010912329667.shtml

The Supreme Court released a long-awaited judicial interpretations against unfair competition. Before the revision of the Law against Unfair Competition, the judicial guidelines will play an important role to update the Chinese rules regarding passing-off and trade secret protection. The guidelines cover a couple of important issues, such as reverse engineering and comparative advertising.

http://laws.ipr.gov.cn/ipr/laws/info/Article.jsp?a_no=47891&col_no=131&dir=200701