CNIPA has recently released the intelligent graphic retrieval feature for trademarks. It’s another significant achievement following the launch of the full-scale online trademark services and trademark database to the public for free, symbolizing a new starting point for the trademark examination in China to transform from automation to intelligence.

The application of intelligent retrieval technology has realized the transformation of the trademark examination work from manual search by typing to “search by graph”, effectively avoiding the problems raised by possible different standards in human judgements.

It is reported that up to now, among all member states of the Trademark Five Parties (China, the United States, the European Union, Japan, and South Korea), China has taken the lead in applying the graphic intelligent retrieval to the examination practice, thus has found a new path that best fits China’s nearly 35 million trademark data in storage. (Source: China National Intellectual Property Office Trademark Office)

CNIPA announced on Feb 13, 2019 that the 14 Olympic symbols of the “Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Emblem” submitted by the Beijing 2022 Olympic Committee and the 4 Paralympic symbols of “Beijing 2022 Paralympic Emblem” by the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Committee, are exclusively owned by and their exclusive right shall be enjoyed by the two committees respectively effective from the date of announcement for the validity of 10 years.

Enclosed: The 14 Olympic symbols of "Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Emblem" and 4 Paralympic symbols of "Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympic Emblem"

(Source: CNIPA website)

In the recent first-instance judgment issued by the Beijing Intellectual Property Court concerning the patent infringement case initiated by Beijing Sogou, who is represented by Unitalen, it’s found that the plaintiff Beijing Sogou had developed and provided the Sogou input method software without infringing the ZL 200510055346.2 invention patent of the defendant Beijing Jiugong Hunyin Chenglie Technology Co. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Beijing Jiugong”), which is entitled as "a numeric input of Chinese pinyin and phonetic multi-word continuous input method on the keypad".

Case Summary:

The plaintiff in this case, Sogou company, received the “Patent Authorization Communication Letter” from Beijing Jiugong company, stating that the Sogou mobile phone input method software provided at the Android and iOS app stores had infringed their patent involved, requiring Sogou to immediately withdraw the relevant products. Upon receipt of this, Sogou responded clearly that the relevant products had not infringed the patent right involved and asked Beijing Jiugong to withdraw the communication letter and instead seek a more reasonable means to resolve it. However, Beijing Jiugong neither withdrew the notice of infringement nor filed a patent infringement lawsuit after Sogou’s reply, which made the related products of Sogou Company stuck in an uncertain state of “patent infringement or not”. Entrusted by Sogou, Unitalen filed a lawsuit before the Beijing Intellectual Property Court so as to confirm the non-infringement.

Judgement :

The Beijing Intellectual Property Court held that there was a substantive dispute between the two parties on the infringement. The defendant did not withdraw the warning and failed to file a lawsuit in the court, which led to the uncertain legal state of whether the input method involved had infringed the patent rights involved. Therefore, it’s in compliance with the law for the plaintiff to file a lawsuit confirming that their acts did not infringe the patent rights involved. Meanwhile, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court combined all kinds of evidences and the on-site inspection and comparison in the review to finally conclude that the plaintiff's input method involved did not infringe the rights of the defendant's patents involved in the case. 　　

Recently, Sohu, represented by Unitalen, received the No. 38834 Invalidation Decision from the Patent Reexamination Board of CNIPA, which agreed to the opinions of Unitalen and held that the No. ZL 201110091092.5 patent for invention were all invalid.

Thus far, the patent dispute involving the entire mobile communication, Internet and financial industries, with a total value of several billion yuan, has come to an end. Unitalen team successfully represented Sohu and safeguarded the legitimate rights and interests of the parties concerned.

Case Summary :

The patent involved is “a telephone or mobile phone that can be connected to a computer”, base on which, the patentee Wang Guoqi claimed to be the “the world’s first person for the telephones/mobile phones that can send Chinese characters and image information”. The patent involved is a divisional application based on its parent application (application date: July 12, 1996) and proposes a technical concept of realizing the transmission of Chinese character information from one telephone to another (or mobile telephone). It was applied for in 1996 and granted in 2015. During the period, it went through a series of complicated review processes including rejection and review before it was granted. The patentee repeatedly initiated patent infringement charges against Xiaomi, China Mobile, China Unicom and other companies in the Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court. In response, some defendants, also filed the request for invalidation of the patent involved with the Patent Reexamination Board of CNIPA (formerly known as SIPO). As of in 2018, Wang Guoqi was involved in the patent infringement administrative disputes with more than 30 companies including China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom, Sohu, Apple, Huawei, Xiaomi, Hammer, Agricultural Bank of China, and Bank of Communications for the total value amounted to billions of yuan. In order to improve efficiency, the Parent Reexamination Board combined the eight invalidation requests involved to make joint decisions.

Court Judgement:

Unitalen used a group of the closest German-and-Japanese combined prior arts, with overall combination strategy and sufficient reasons for invalidation, it stands out among hundreds of evidences submitted in the eight invalidation requests. The Patent Reexamination Board made the judgement based on the evidences submitted by Unitalen and held that the patent involved was not inventive, thus it’s declared as invalid. 　　

Recently, the international acclaim IP magazine "Managing Intellectual Property" (MIP) announced the global ranking of firms with the largest number of PCT applications submitted in 2017. Unitalen ranks among the top 10 PCT applicants in China, ranks the 27th in the global TOP 50 list and 20th in Asia.

This ranking is done by the MIP's professional investigation team, based on the CAP Global data on the number of PCT applications that entered the national phase in 2017 with priority date from January 1 to December 31, 2017.

Recently, the international acclaim trademark law professional media "World Trademark Review" (WTR) published the WTR1000 directory, the list of the world's leading trademark legal services in 2019. Unitalen ranks among top tiers both in the "Prosecution and Strategy" and " Enforcement and Litigation". Unitalen partners Zhao Lei, Chen Dan and Huang Ying were selected as recommended individuals in the field of “Prosecution and Strategy”. Li Wei was selected as recommended individual in the field of “Enforcement and Litigation”.

WTR publish “WTR1000 Directory” every year, which covers 70 jurisdictions around the world and has high reference value in the global trademark industry. At present, the directory has been released to the ninth series. Unitalen has been well-recognized for its high-quality professional services and comprehensive strength for many years.

Unitalen was awarded as “Top 10 Trademark Agency of the Year” at the "2019 China IP Forum (CIPF) Spring Festival Conference and Service Industry Awarding Ceremony", which was hosted by the CIPF Organizing Committee and the Beijing CIPF Research Institute.