On the morning of October 20, the second lecture of this year’s “IP Rights Lecture Series for Chinese Employees of Japanese Enterprises” was successfully held in the conference room on the 21_st Floor of Shanghai International Trade Center. The lecture, jointly held by Watson & Band and JETRO’s Shanghai Office, was entitled “Common IP Problems in Business Operations” and given by Watson & Band’s Partner, Mr. Joe Liu.

Mr. Liu’s lecture involved the following five topics: registration of rights, investigation and handling of infringement upon IP rights, how to deal with commercial confusion, how to respond to bad-faith litigation, and how to respond to another party’s notice on rights ownership.

In the first session, Mr. Liu first emphasized on the necessity of registration, and listed in detail the problems frequently occurring during the registration of IP rights, along with the reasons that gave rise to those problems. Accordingly, he provided solutions to the relevant problems that might be encountered in business operations.

In the second session, Mr. Liu summarized the development trends in counterfeiting activities, i.e. highly hidden, Internet dependent, prevalent, specialized and westward going. Then Mr. Liu analyzed the developments in anti-counterfeiting actions; specifically, he held that these developments were primarily featured by strengthened criminal actions, post-action civil compensation and diversified action targets. Also he shared the procedure for investigation and handling of infringement upon IP rights and reminded the attendees the matters that should be noted in terms of IP infringement.

As for third topic relating to commercial confusion, Mr. Liu introduced several typical cases that he once handled, by which he reminded the attendees of formulating appropriate strategies for dealing with commercial confusion, fully integrating internal and external resources, and effectively applying the currently applicable laws and regulations and judicial interpretations, so as to deliver their determination in “protecting and enforcing the IP rights” to the entire market.

As to how to respond to bad-faith litigation, Mr. Liu shared some countermeasures and advised that the attendees should take initiative in contacting and talking with the bad-faith litigant at an earlier stage, so as to collect more favorable evidence that might support subsequent counterclaim for compensation.

In the last part relating to how to respond to another party’s notice on rights ownership, Mr. Liu clearly defined the boundary for free use, with respect to common problems involving use of pictures or fonts and reprinting of articles published through other public accounts. Also, he provided advice on how to deal with such notices based on (i) conducting self-inspection as soon as possible and deleting all unauthorized pictures; (ii) demanding related notrial deeds from the other party; and (iii) negotiating with the other party for settlement.

After the lecture Mr. Liu also communicated with the attendees and answered questions relating to IP problems that were encountered and most concerned in business operations.