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Where is the legal boundary for wool harvesting?
2024 06/26Author:Dong XiaohuaThe above three cases are typical cases of wool harvesting. Harvesting wool refers to a group of online earners using various online financial products or red envelope activities to promote offline profits, and also refers to collecting preferential information from various banks, financial institutions, and businesses in order to achieve profitability. At present, wool collection is not only limited to the field of Internet finance, but also has penetrated into various fields of society. Many activities, such as taking out coupons, discounts, phone calls, and traffic, can be called wool collection. -
Substantial similarity determination of computer software under the condition of no source code
2024 06/24Author:Zhu JiapingThe basis for determining infringement of computer software copyright is similar to that of traditional copyright infringement. In addition to proof of rights, it mainly includes two aspects: "possibility of contact" and "substantial similarity". In the case of source code comparison, it is relatively simple to compare the source code through text. However, in reality, it is often difficult to obtain the source code of the accused infringing software, and other methods need to be used to determine substantive similarity. This paper discusses how to determine the substantive similarity of software by analyzing the software disassembly code without source code in the case of (2021) Jingminchu No. 4 case of American Photography Company v. Tiktok Company. -
The Enlightenment of the First Announcement of the Illegal Implementation of Business Concentration Cases after the Amendment of the Anti Monopoly Law on Enterprises
2024 06/13Author:Wang HaiyangOn June 24, 2022, China's Anti Monopoly Law completed its first revision fifteen years after its promulgation and came into effect on August 1, 2022. The new Anti Monopoly Law significantly increases the legal responsibility for illegal implementation of concentration of business operators. "If the anti-monopoly enforcement agency of the State Council orders to stop the implementation of concentration, dispose of shares or assets within a specified period, transfer business within a specified period, and take other necessary measures to return to the state before concentration, a fine of no more than 500000 yuan may be imposed." It is revised to "If it has or may have the effect of excluding or restricting competition, the anti-monopoly enforcement agency of the State Council orders to stop the implementation of concentration, dispose of shares or assets within a specified period, transfer business within a specified period, and take other necessary measures to return to the state before concentration, a fine of no more than 10% of the sales revenue of the previous year may be imposed. If it does not have the effect of excluding or restricting competition, a fine of no more than 5 million yuan. However, in the past two years, the State Administration for Market Regulation has not released any cases of illegal implementation of business concentration that are subject to penalties under the new Anti Monopoly Law. On June 7, 2024, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued a decision on the administrative penalty for Zhengzhou Haili Electric Appliance Co., Ltd., a joint venture established by Shanghai Haili (Group) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Shanghai Haili) and Qingdao Haier Air Conditioning Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Haier Air Conditioning), which failed to declare the illegal implementation of concentration of operators in accordance with the law. This "boot" has finally landed, and the case is of great demonstration significance and deserves high attention from enterprises. -
Does providing bribery funds necessarily constitute the crime of bribery
2024 05/31Author:Dong XiaohuaBribery is a power money transaction, and the person who provides the bribe usually constitutes the crime of bribery. However, due to the complexity and diversity of social life, bribery behavior unfolds in multiple chains. The person who provides bribery funds may not necessarily be the requester of the bribery behavior, nor may they know the true purpose of the funds. Therefore, although bribery funds are provided in specific circumstances, they may not necessarily constitute the crime of bribery. -
Legal Protection against Code Leakage in Software Companies
2024 05/23Author:Zhu JiapingIn today's digital era, as the core of software and Internet enterprise operations, software security is increasingly concerned. Software code leakage (broadly defined as leaks, including cracking and leaking executable programs) may lead to the loss of intellectual property and the leakage of trade secrets, posing a huge threat to the company. This paper aims to delve into the issue of software code leakage and focus on how software companies can protect themselves at the legal level. -
The potential impact of TikTok's US ban on sellers and compliance recommendations
2024 04/30Author:Zou zhiqingOn April 24, 2024, US President Biden signed a package of bills related to aid to Ukraine and Israel, including the Division H Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversarial Controlled Applications Act (H.R.7521), which defines TikTok as "applications controlled by foreign hostile forces.". -
The Regulation and Response Strategies of Anti Unfair Competition Law on Trademark Registration
2024 04/28Author:Yuan YuanIn 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. -
The first AI sound infringement case in the country has been sentenced—— How can generative artificial intelligence avoid infringement?
2024 04/25Author:Zhou Xueteng 、Yang QianOn 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. -
Be wary of the harm of traps and evidence collection, and rectify the path of intellectual property protection in the seed industry
2024 04/24Author:Wang Haiyang、Qu ShuaiFirstly, 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.