Pirated movies

A CD and DVD retailer in Beijing was ordered to pay 192,000 yuan to six US movie makers, including 20th Century Fox and Universal City Studios, for selling pirated DVDs.

The six companies sued Beijing Yongsheng Century International Culture Co Ltd in district court in Beijing and asked the defendant to stop selling pirated DVDs, make a public apology to copyright owners and pay compensation.

The court ruled that the Beijing firm failed to provide proper copyright certificates of DVDs it sold and infringed on copyrights of the six movie companies, so the firm was ordered to pay 192,000 yuan in compensation.

The court did not support the demand from the plaintiffs for a public apology because, while the infringement caused financial losses, it did not damage the plaintiffs' images, the court said.

Shenzhen innovations

SIPO Commissioner Tian Lipu gave a lecture to Shenzhen government officials on August 29 encouraging Shenzhen to continue to play a leading role in generating IPs in the country.

Shenzhen, one of China's four Special Economic Zones, has been emphasizing the creation and protection of IPs. Last year, eight of the top-15 invention patent filers were from Shenzhen, including telecom equipment giants Huawei and ZTE.

Tian said what was more important is that businesses have been taking the lead: enterprises, not State-owned universities or research institutes, accounted for 90 percent of the city's total research and development (R&D) spending, generating 90 percent of patents in the city.

Tian urged the Shenzhen municipal government to further encourage enterprises to innovate, protect innovations and pay attention to the supply of talent in R&D and patent work.

Protecting rights at exhibitions

Beijing Intellectual Property Office and the Legal Affairs Office of the Beijing municipal government held a conference with experts and business representatives to hear their opinions on the draft of Beijing's IP protection measures to protect rights at exhibitious.

Six officials from the central government and the China Chamber for the Promotion of International Trade, one of the largest exhibit organizers, nine other exhibition organizers and 10 representatives from foreign and domestic companies participated in the conference.

Trade organizations representing US, European, and Japanese companies said they would collect opinions from their member companies and provide feedback to the Beijing municipal government.

Beijing, like many other Chinese cities, has made increasing efforts to protect intellectual property during exhibitions, including an infringement complaint office on site at many exhibitions.

Defending writers

The Anti-piracy Subcommittee of Copyright Society of China and Chineseall.com, a digital library operator that assists in fighting online piracy, launched a campaign on August 31 in Beijing to help writers who have been victims of intellectual piracy.

The campaign aims to recruit 100 famous writers who have been damaged and want to defend their rights.

The two organizations will assist them to hire lawyers, accept copyright owners' trust to investigate piracy of books and take legal actions in representing the writers.

(China Daily 09/10/2007 page9)

2013-07-17