Foreign Brands Claim .CN Domain Names

"You may first log on to www.sipo.gov.cn, the official web site of the State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO), input the keyword or equivalent International Patent Classification number, and you will get the desired patent abstracts and patent descriptions.  See, here are the patent documentations we are looking for…." This was one of the usual scenes in the morning of April 26 on the Wang Fu Jing Street, a must-go shopping heaven for tourists to Beijing.  Many shoppers who were originally heading for fashionable products in the block and mortar department stores turned heads to the temporary stands on the sidewalks promoting intellectual property protection.  

A large-scale promotional activity sponsored by SIPO, Beijing Intellectual Property Administration, members of Beijing Intellectual Property Cross-Agency Commission and Dong Cheng District Authority, for the celebration of April 26, the World Intellectual Property Day, was opened on the plaza in front of the Wang Fu Jing Book Store, near the south end of the shopping street.  Intellectual property administrators, judges, custom officials and professionals from intellectual property service agencies in the Beijing area gathered to answer questions from the public.  SIPO Deputy Commissioner Ma Lianyuan and Secretary General Chen Zhonghua attended the opening ceremony and delivered speeches.  Ma and Zhang Jiandong, Deputy Secretary General of the Beijing Municipal Government co-opened the curtain for the event. 

The purpose of selecting Wang Fu Jing, the most well-known shopping street to the Chinese people, as the headquarter for promoting intellectual property knowledge in the Beijing area, was to have thousands of regular consumers understood the close-knit connection between intellectual property and our daily lives.  Officials were also interviewed by reporters after the opening ceremony on questions ranging from the intellectual property laws and regulations of China to the actual protective status in the Beijing area.  Questions from the shoppers were more diverse and specific, such as how to distinguish genuine and counterfeiting trademarks, how to proceed when finding own patented products infringed, could individuals register for trademarks, what are the causes of action and litigation procedure of intellectual property cases.  The Shelf for the World Intellectual Property Day, a dedicated intellectual property book show set up inside the Wang Fu Jing Book Store also attracted many shoppers seeking for deeper understanding of intellectual property. 

(Reported by Yu Tao, Zhang Boyou; Translated by Hu Yuzhang)

2002-05-13

2002-05-13