China Practice
109th Canton Fair Is On The Go
China Import and Export Fair in Guangzhou, China, also known as the Canton Fair, launched its 3-week spring exhibition on April 15, 2011. The Fair enjoys the longest history and broadest distribution of overseas buyers since 1957. It is held twice a year, in Spring and Autumn. The exhibitors are mostly domestic manufacturers soliciting buyers from overseas, and according to the Fair, various types of business activities are carried out through both on-site and online information exchange.
1. Copy of copyright, letter patent or trademark registrations
2. Copy of patent status
3. Copy of IDs or business certificates. Foreign complainants, including assignees and licensees, must provide notarized and legalized Chinese/English comparison documents proving their rights and interests.
4. Foreign rights holders who file complaints must retain local agents to represent them and an executed power of attorney shall be provided.
It is expected that the normal preparation of formalities may be time consuming. We recommend IP rights holders who have an interest in China to keep documents handy for immediate use.
To file a complaint with the hospitality station, all complainants shall fulfill requisite criteria and formalities, including:
In recent years, the Canton Fair has become a target for intellectual property (IP) owners to investigate infringing activities and to preserve evidence of those activities. In October 2010, the Fair stipulated the “Measures for Handling Complaints Suspected of Involving Intellectual Property Rights Infringement” and set up a hospitality station for IP and trade disputes to deal with suspected infringements occurring during the Canton Fair. Only those who hold valid Canton Fair attendance IDs are qualified to file complaints with the hospitality station, and the station does not accept complaints via telephone or electronic form. According to the stipulation, experts from the IP administrative department will be appointed to decide whether or not to accept each complaint.
The Measures do not stipulate any subsequent legal steps the complainants can take if a complaint is sustained. IP rights holders should still seek administrative or litigative remedies to further enforce their rights. However, should the subject of the infringing complaint be the same as the one that has been dealt with during a previous Canton Fair, then the Measures do require complainants to provide documentation proving that they have followed up on this matter through legal means after the closing of the previous Fair. In other words, the hospitality station will not accept a case if it is a repetitive complaint—filed by the same complainant against the same offender—unless the complainant first exhausts all possible legal resources.
Exhibitors that have been complained against bear the burden of proving they are “not infringing” and are requested to sign an undertaking, promising no further exhibition of any suspected articles if there is no effective evidence to support their non-infringement status. Available punishments for suspected infringing exhibitors are either to detain the articles or to request the exhibition of suspected articles be withdrawn. For repetitive offenders, the Canton Fair may also annul the exhibitor’s qualifications.
|