In recent years, with the continuous growth of trademark applications and registrations in China, trademark registration has gradually become a prominent issue. In the first half of 2023 alone, the Trademark Office cracked down on 249000 malicious trademark registrations, of which 192000 were not authorized in trademark registration applications, objections, and other authorization processes, accounting for 77.1%. How to identify trademark registration, regulate trademark registration, balance the rights between different subjects, and correctly define the boundaries of rights have become hot topics of legislative and judicial attention. Coinciding with the annual "4.26 World Intellectual Property Day", courts across the country have successively released typical cases of intellectual property protection in 2023. Among them, cases of regulating trademark registration have been selected, reflecting the exploration and attempts of local courts to stop trademark registration and purify the market competition environment in response to the aforementioned hot topics and concerns.

On April 23, the Beijing Internet Court delivered a judgment on the first instance of the "first case of AI voice infringement in China" (hereinafter referred to as "AI voice case"), clearly affirming that, on the premise of identifiability, the protection scope of the rights and interests of natural persons' voices can extend to AI generated voices. The content generated by artificial intelligence often relies on certain materials for machine learning and training, which are then transformed into AI artifacts with a certain appearance. In this case, the AI sound generated using text to speech software (hereinafter referred to as the "product in question") is called a "recorded work". The five defendants in this case, including the design developer, voice material provider, seller, buyer, and user of the product in question, can be considered as the main entities involved in the generative artificial intelligence industry. It is worth pondering how to avoid infringement risks and better promote industrial development.

Firstly, from the perspective of protection system, China has basically established a legal system for the protection of new plant varieties with Chinese characteristics. A legal protection system has been formed, with Article 123 of the Civil Code as the positioning, Chapter 4 of the Seed Law as the protection foundation, and the Special Regulations on the Protection of New Plant Varieties as the protection mainline. At the same time, two detailed rules for the implementation of the regulations and three judicial interpretations of the Supreme People's Court as auxiliary axes.

Accurate determination of data identity is crucial in intellectual property cases, as it directly affects the trial and judgment results of the case. Firstly, it plays a crucial role in evidence preservation by determining data integrity or tampering, ensuring the legality of the evidence. Secondly, the determination of the identity of the data between the plaintiff and defendant helps to prove the authenticity of the infringement facts. Finally, determining data consistency can help confirm the scope of infringement and affect the determination of the consequences of infringement. It can be seen that the determination of data identity directly supports the effective implementation of the intellectual property legal system and is an important link in ensuring judicial fairness and protecting intellectual property.

Recently, the grand debut of domestic cars such as Xiaomi, NIO, and Ideal has attracted everyone's attention. Technology has changed life, and this concept is constantly moving towards new stages in the automotive industry. However, the cutting-edge technology of autonomous driving has long been subject to disputes over patents, technical secrets, and other related issues. The reasons for this are not only the high, precision, and cutting-edge characteristics of the field and the scarcity of top talents, but also the inherent conflict between personnel mobility and trade secret protection.

Industry associations and chambers of commerce are important components of social organizations in China. Their member entities are units engaged in economic activities of the same nature, industry personnel, or economic organizations in the same region. Their names are generally suffix with words such as "Industry Association", "Association", "Chamber of Commerce", "Industry Guild", "Federation", "Promotion Association", etc. In addition to possessing the basic characteristics of non-profit and non-governmental social organizations, industry associations and chambers of commerce also exhibit significant characteristics such as industry, industry, and economy.

Looking back at 2023, the securities industry has undergone great changes. Whether it is the establishment of the State Administration for Financial Supervision and Administration, or the multiple normative documents and exchange business rules issued by the China Securities Regulatory Commission, all convey the country's attitude towards strong supervision of the securities market. After 30 years of development, our securities market has indeed entered a deep reform zone, and many problems have accumulated for a long time. Among them, fraudulent issuance has always been a "cancer" in the securities market. There are mature "packaging" institutions in the market that specialize in providing comprehensive decoration and packaging for potential listed companies, enabling them to issue stocks or bonds to obtain undue benefits. Financial fraud incidents such as Luckin Coffee and Purple Crystal Storage continue to emerge, causing a huge impact on the securities market and investors, endangering the order and financial security of China's securities market. The China Securities Regulatory Commission has repeatedly stated that it will promote the implementation of administrative, civil, and criminal penalties for fraudulent issuance to form a strong deterrent. To this end, we have launched a series of articles on fraudulent distribution, sharing practical cases related to fraudulent distribution with everyone and exploring relevant legal issues. This article is the first in a series of articles, please continue to follow.

The Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases Involving Harmful Tax Collection and Management, which came into effect on March 20, 2024, Law Interpretation [2024] No. 4, further clarifies the conviction and sentencing standards, understanding of charges, legal application of new criminal methods, and punishment principles for 14 tax related crimes, including the crime of tax evasion, evasion of tax arrears, fraud of export tax refunds, and falsification of value-added tax special invoices. The author of this article, based on years of experience in representing tax related criminal and administrative cases, interprets several high incidence charges such as tax evasion mentioned in Fa Shi [2024] No. 4 and the key issues that readers are concerned about, in order to be beneficial to readers.

Last year, our team acted as an agent for an annuity insurance surrender case, with a surrender amount of 1.5 million yuan. With the efforts of our team and multiple negotiations, the insurance company finally refunded the full premium to the customer. When formulating the litigation plan, we prepared a plan to claim triple compensation from the insurance company. If the case enters the litigation process, whether insurance consumers can claim triple punitive damages in the event of insurance fraud will become the biggest controversial focus.