Commercial AV standard

A senior official with the Ministry of Information Industry said on April 12 in Guangzhou that China is trying to commercialize its domestic audio standard, which may also be put in use in the Internet protocol TV standard in the country.

A Guangzhou-based company proposed that coding and decoding of digital audio and become an industrial standard in January.

Han Jun, deputy director general of the department of science and technology with the ministry, said his ministry will support the deployment of the technology in financing and industry planning. Commercialization work should be led by the industry, he said.

Audio and visual standards are widely used in areas such as digital TV, digital broadcasting, broadband media and mobile media, for which Chinese companies pay hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties.

Tianjin trademark protection

Tianjin recently released a regulation on the recognition and protection of famous brands in the municipality in North China, trying to help companies better protect and use their trademarks.

There are over 40,000 registered trademarks in Tianjin, including 333 famous brands.

The regulation says famous brands can enjoy stricter protection for a term of three years. If their brand value reduces in the period, they will not be able to keep the title in the next term.

Infringements on those brands can be fined from 5,000 yuan to 30,000 yuan.

Copyright surpluses

Wang Ziqiang, director general of the department of copyright with the National Copyright Administration, said on April 12 in Beijing that China had achieved surpluses in all categories of copyrights from books, magazines, audio and video products in 2006.

He said at an international copyright trading seminar that government efforts in the protection of copyrights and educating companies and individuals was effective in 2006, contributing to a balanced foreign trade in copyrights.

Coke loses trademark case

The National Trademark Office ruled on April 12 that the trademark of Fanda FD could be registered by a food and beverage company in Jingzhou of Central China's Hubei Province, putting an end to a dispute between the Chinese firm and US beverage giant Coca Cola.

The Jingzhou-based Meili Group filed a trademark application for Fanda FD in 1997, which passed a preliminary review by the National Trademark Office in March 1998.

However, Coca-Cola objected to the registration application one month later, claiming the brand was similar to its Fanta soft drink, but the office ruled there was no similarity between two brands.

In the past nine years, the US soft drink giant raised five objections and lost five times.

Cities for intellectual property

Tian Lipu, director of the State Intellectual Property Office, said on April 10 in Nanchang of East China's Jiangxi Province that China had approved 55 pilot cities, 10 model cities, 14 pilot development parks and two model development parks on intellectual properties.

He said the pilot system has helped popularize the concept of intellectual property in the country and increased company enthusiasm in creating and applying them.

Guangdong, Fujian, Guizhou, and Sichuan Provinces also started their own pilots, while Shaaxi and Jiangsu provinces also launched programs to provide services to the public as well as small and medium firms.

Microsoft praises progress

Brad Smith, senior vice-president and general counsel with Microsoft, said on April 13 in Tokyo that China has made significant achievements in protecting software copyrights.

He said it was "the most important and encouraging year" for software protection in China in 2006, as the country required PC makers to install legitimate software and government agencies to use legal copies of software.

According to the Business Software Alliance, which represents the interest of commercial software companies like Microsoft and Adobe, the piracy rate of PC software in China was 85 percent, down from over 90 percent the previous year.

Sci-fi writer sues US filmmaker

A science fiction writer in Dongying city of East China's Shandong Province filed a suit against the American movie studio 20th Century Fox, claiming it infringed the copyrights of two of his novels in the movie The Day after Tomorrow.

The court in Dongying began to hear on the case on April 11, but no decision has been handed down.

The writer Li Jianmin claimed there were 308 similarities between his writings and the movie. Li filed the suit in March, 2006.

Fujian police raid counterfeiters

Police in Fujian Province in East China said that in nine months from March to December, they investigated 306 intellectual property right infringement cases and arrested 529 suspects. The total amount of the cases reached 236 million yuan.

In March, police officers found over 90,000 fake trademarks for Nike, Adidas and Puma at a printing house in Putian.

In July, city police raided a warehouse and found 130,000 pairs of counterfeit Nike shoes valued at 58 million yuan.

In order to carry out law enforcement more effectively, the provincial police department formed a coordinated working group last year for administrative departments to exchange information and act together.

 

(China Daily 04/23/2007 page9)

2013-07-17