1 Jiangsu

TV show trademark dispute

Jiangsu Broadcasting Corp was recently sued over a trademark used for one of its most poplar TV shows.

Jin Ahuan, an e-business worker, said he registered the trademark Fei Cheng Wu Rao - or Sincere People Only - for matchmaking and marriage services in 2010.

In the same year, Jiangsu TV started a dating game show with the same name, which Jin said infringed his trademark right.

But attorneys for the defendant said the two marks "belong to different categories and look different".

ZJOL.COM.CN

2 Beijing

'Sword and the Internet'

Another campaign to fight online piracy named "Sword and the Internet" will begin at the end of June, Wang Zhicheng, a senior official of the National Copyright Administration, told a forum on Internet law and public policy at Peking University last week.

It is the eighth "Sword" campaign since 2005 organized by the administration in cooperation with the ministries of public security, and industry and information technology.

In the past eight years the combined effort has investigated more than 3,700 online infringements and shut down 1,500 illegal websites.

Book copyright lawsuit

China's largest online bookstore Dangdang and China Theater Press were recently sued by Nanhai Publishing Co over the copyright for One Hundred Years of Solitude, the Nobel Prize winning novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

In 2010, Nanhai Publishing acquired the exclusive Chinese mainland copyright on the work. It claims China Theater Press published an unlicensed version of the book and sold it online at Dangdang.

Nanhai Publishing is asking for 1 million yuan ($157,000) in compensation from the two defendants.

CNR.CN

Illegal Euro Cup videos

A number of video websites may face charges because they illegally posted videos of Euro Cup matches, according to the copyright administration of Beijing.

The copyright administration has issued notices requiring the websites to immediately take the videos offline. It will also impose administrative penalties, and added that the infringing sites might be sued by copyright holders.

Only six Chinese websites have the rights to broadcast all or some of the soccer games, including CNTV, PPTV and QQ.

THE BEIJING NEWS

3 Hunan

First IP training course

More than 280 village officials recently attended the Changsha county government's first training course on intellectual property rights.

Experts from the provincial intellectual property office, Central South University and the county science and technology administration gave lectures on the nation's IP strategies, laws and policies, especially those covering plant species and geographical indication.

SIPO.GOV.CN

4 Fujian

Cross-Straits forum

The fifth cross-Straits intellectual property forum held on June 18 in Xiamen city attracted more than 300 delegates from universities, companies and patent agencies. Fifteen participating scholars were from Taiwan.

The forum promoted IP exchanges and cooperation between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan as well as the IP industry in the province.

"Intellectual property protection is improving in the mainland," said Tsai Lien-sheng, secretary-general of Taiwan's federation of industries. "Lawyers and accountants from both sides exchanged ideas from different perspectives to deepen cross-Straits cooperation."

FJSEN.COM

(China Daily 06/20/2012 page17)