Case Law
The first major dispute on violation of intellectual property rights was filed in April 1992 by Wang Yongmin, the inventor of Wubi, against Dongnan Corporation.
According to Zheng Chengsi, the first major copyright case involving a foreign party was Walt Disney Productions vs. Beijing Publisher and Co.
In 2010, US law firm Gipson Hoffman & Pancione filed a suit against the Chinese government on allegations of distributing the pirated cyber-filtering software of the US company Solid Oak.
In March 1992 Chinese authorities found that Shenzhen reflective materials institute had copied 650,000 Microsoft Corporation holograms. The institute was found to be guilty of trademark infringement against Microsoft, but was fined a mere US $252. Losses to Microsoft as a result of the infringement are estimated at US $30 million.
In 2007, CHINT Group Co. Ltd sued French low-voltage electronics manufacturer Schneider for infringement of a circuit breaker utility model patent. The Wenzhou Intermediate People's Court ruled in CHINT’s favor, awarding RMB 334.8 million to the Chinese manufacturer, the highest amount ever in a Chinese IP case. After Schneider appealed to the High Court of Zhejiang province, the courts mediated the issue and the parties settled for RMB 157.5 million. In its judgement, the Wenzhou Intermediate People’s Court labeled the case “the no. 1 case of patent infringement in China.” At the EU-China summit 2007, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said, "I regard the SCHNEIDER case as a test case of the level playing field in China on intellectual property protection that we want to see".
In 2001, the China Environmental Project Tech Inc. filed a patent infringement lawsuit against American company Huayang Electronics Co. and Japanese FKK after those companies profited using a CEPT patented technique for using seawater in a fuel gas desulphurization process. Though the Supreme Court ruled in favor of CEPT, the court failed to issue an injunction because the infringing process was being used to generate electricity and an injunction would interfere with the public interest. The court instead awarded RMB 50 million to CEPT.
Read more about this topic: Intellectual Property In The People's Republic Of China
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“Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.”
—Bible: New Testament, Galatians 2:15-16.