IP

Positive changes in the legal environment surrounding intellectual property and its enforcement in China are benefitting foreign firms, writes Andrew Peaple, including for Peppa Pig and basketball star Michael Jordan Intellectual property protection has long featured among the key concerns for foreign businesses in China. The perennial complaints to an extent mask the significant progress China has made in this area, through better legislation and enforcement. The improvements in recent …

From the race to find a Covid-19 vaccine, to Huawei’s UK 5G ambitions and Xi Jinping’s focus on IP rights in China: Peter Mumford looks at some of the intellectual property stories that made the news last year China’s hunt for a Covid-19 vaccine As with all things 2020, the only place to start is with the Covid-19 pandemic and the race to find a vaccine for the virus that …

China is increasingly open to overseas tech investors and the burden of regulation is lower than ever before: You should get to know the red tape related to China’s labour laws, Cyber Security Law and others – but it doesn’t need to stand in your way China is a territory rich in potential for UK tech companies, with a hunger for technology and innovation. Yet organisations wanting to capitalise on …

Trademark and design rights in the EU are changing, so it’s essential to ensure your IP rights are protected in a changed European Union, write Deborah Maxwell and Cameron Malone-Brown of Potter Clarkson LLP From 31 December 2020, registered EU trademarks (EUTM) and Community design rights (RCD) will no longer be valid in the UK. The UKIPO will create equivalent UK ‘cloned’ rights. All pending and future EUTMs and RCDs …

ENTRIES TO THE 2021 CHINA-SCOTLAND BUSINESS AWARDS ARE NOW OPEN. AS PART OF OUR COUNTDOWN TO THE NEXT EVENT, WE TAKE A LOOK AT THE COMPANIES THAT CAME OUT ON TOP THIS YEAR. RACHEL JONES OF SNAPDRAGON WAS WINNER OF THE 2O2O ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR AWARD Rachel Jones launched her online product monitoring company SnapDragon after discovering that products she was making with another company in China were being …

Hasbro, Mattel and eOne Family brands reveal their experiences of licensing IP in China and explain how they effectively protected their IP rights to CBBC‘s Iris Hu On a stroll through Beijing’s buzzing Tai Koo Li mall, you don’t have to look for long to spot familiar cartoon characters on the T-shirts in window displays, or well-known paintings printed on to the latest covetable tote bag. Of course these cartoon …

Aidan Southall of law firm Potter Clarkson explains how companies can continue to protect their IP and trade secrets at a time when more employees than ever are working remotely The Covid-19 crisis has undoubtedly changed the way businesses operate for good. Nowhere is this more evident than in the shift towards remote working, which is clearly here to stay. In this rapidly changing commercial environment, businesses will need to …

China and the UK enjoy a mutually beneficial trade relationship, and although China serves a large receipt for UK exports, there are ongoing challenges relating to market access for UK business in China. But is conducting business in China getting more challenging asks Alexandra Kimmons? Approaching the China market can be overwhelming, especially for small businesses. It is necessary to weigh the costs and benefits of trading in a new …

Kieran Porter of Elicius explains what corporate intelligence actually is, who needs it and why, and the pitfalls to look out for “People should have seen this coming” was the widespread reaction to the recent dramatic downfall of Luckin Coffee. China’s US-listed Starbucks challenger dropped 90 percent of its RMB 85 billion valuation in April and was raided by regulators as part of an investigation into its accounting practices. But …

  For any UK company seeking to enter, or expand operations within, the China market, the words ‘Intellectual Property’ (IP) hold an immense amount of clout. Protecting IP is relevant across every industry and sector – from engineering to automobiles to medicine, and actors in all of these industries are sensitive to the value of their IP and the great costs that are associated with its compromise. One analogy of …