By Gregory Sy, Grandall Legal Group

I. Employment Law Legislation

1. What legislation governs employment law in China?

Employment law in China is governed by a relatively comprehensive set of laws, more recently supplemented in late 2007 to strengthen workers’ rights.

Major laws include:
- Labour Law of the People’s Republic of China (1994) (“Labour Law”)
- Labour Contract Law of the People’s Republic of China (2007) (“Labour Contract Law”)
- Labour Arbitration and Dispute Resolution Law of the People’s Republic of China (2007) (“Labour Arbitration Law”) (effective May 1, 2008) Read the rest of “Guide to Employment Law in China – 2008 (Part I)” or post a comment

Maintaining your IP Portfolio

By Maarten Roos 

To maintain the exclusive rights to IP, an organization must have the mechanisms in place to guarantee continued protection.

First of all, someone must ensure that registered IP rights maintain their validity. Trademarks are registered for 10 years at a time, thus registrations should be extended before the ending of such a validity period. Failure to do so will result in the loss of all exclusive rights to the trademark. Domain names are cheap and easy to register, but a maintenance fee must be paid. Granted patents and designs will have a non-extendable validity of 10 years (for design and utility model patents) or 20 years (for invention) from the filing date, but an annuity must be paid each year to ensure continued validity. Read the rest of “Protection vs. Enforcement: Where to start your China IPR Strategy? Part II” or post a comment

By Maarten Roos

The continued pervasiveness of counterfeiting in China is not only a problem of law, but also one of enforcement. While China’s laws and regulations conform to the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) and other widely accepted international principles, certain parts of China’s protection mechanism have proven ineffective. Common examples are the high standards for criminal liability of counterfeiters, the high burden of evidence to prove bad faith registrations, and the difficulty to prove damages in civil proceedings. On the other hand, it is abundantly clear that the police, administrative authorities and courts often lack the resources, the knowledge or the determination to effectively combat infringements.

China’s own continuing development, and to a lesser extent international pressure, will gradually lead to improvements on the above issues, but this is not a process individual intellectual property (IP) owners can influence. Read the rest of “Protection vs. Enforcement: Where to start your China IPR Strategy? Part I” or post a comment

By Alexander de Nerée

A drawback of my, in itself interesting profession, is that I encounter a lot of lying in my daily work. Contrary to popular believe it is not so much the lawyers that do the lying. Although I have to admit lawyers are generally not easily persuaded to part with information, let alone the truth, I prefer to think of what we do as skilful editing of the information to fit a certain version of the truth. No harm in that. That is what lawyers are paid to do.

But in order to edit the information, you will have to obtain the information first. And that is not as easy as it may sound. First there is the filter of the client’s hurt feelings that makes it difficult to obtain any relevant information. In its strong believe of the correctness and the fairness of its own position, the client filters out anything that appears to be in its disadvantage.

“They never complained about the quality of our products and now, out of the bleu, they want their money back and claim damages! That is unreasonable.” In itself  this is a good point which could legally be relevant but not if Read the rest of “Lying” or post a comment

“Private label products or services are typically those manufactured or provided by one company for offer under another company’s brand.” –Wikipedia. This is the name of the game for China and for the most part, the products you buy here in the United States are not really manufactured by the name on the label. In some instances most of the big box or clothing stores you frequent have an inventory almost entirely made up of their own products under their own brand or multiple unaffiliated brands. This is not just a game for the big boys, this can be accomplished with…

Read the rest of “Private Labeling & Criteria for Selecting the Right Manufacturer” or post a comment >>