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Archive for the 'blawgdog' Category

Timeline of Oracle v. Google and the docket files

(This is an ongoing case and therefore this post will be updated along with the development.)
Issue: whether Oracle can claim a copyright on Java APIs and, if so, whether Google infringes these copyrights. In order to allow developers to write their own programs for Android, Google’s implementation used the same names, organization, and functionality as the Java APIs. May 2012, Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California ruled that APIs are not subject to copyright: where “there is only one way to declare a given method functionality, [so that] everyone using that function must write that specific line of code in the same way,” Oracle appealed to the ninth circuit. The circuit ruled in favor of Oracle in May 2014, finding that the Java APIs are copyrightable, but leaving open the possibility that Google might have a fair use defense. Google filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review (on the issue of whether API is copyrightable) but failed. The case returned to the district court for trial. In May 2016, a jury unanimously agreed that Google’s use of the Java APIs was fair use. Oracle appealed. In March 2018, the Federal Circuit reversed the district court. The Court rejected the jury’s verdict (after previously saying that the jury had to decide the case) and held that Google’s use was not fair use as a matter of law. Google appealed to the Supreme Court. This time the SC granted the cert. Oral argument is expected in March 2020, and a decision by June. Documents in Docket:

Supreme Court (2020)

Oracle Brief (February 12, 2020) Google Opening Brief (January 6, 2020)

Amicus Briefs

In support of Respondent

In support of Neither Party

In support of Petitioner

Cert Petition (2019)

Solicitor General Brief (Sept. 27, 2019) Google Reply Brief (April 10, 2019) Oracle Response in Opposition (Mar. 27, 2019) Google Petition for Writ of Certiorari (Feb. 25, 2019)

Amicus Briefs

In support of Petitioner

Federal Circuit (2018)

Google’s petition for rehearing en banc (May 29, 2018) Federal Circuit Decision (March 27, 2018)

Amicus Briefs

In Support of Oracle

In Support of Google

Federal Circuit (2014)

Federal Circuit Decision (May 9, 2014)

Remand

NDCA Order Denying Rule 50 Motions (June 8, 2016) NDCA Jury Verdict (May 26, 2016)

English Abstracts of the Chinese Entries at BlawgDog (Dec. 21th – Jan. 24th)

 

This movie was made by a few Chinese WOW players. The story is well edited and all the episodes are captured from te WOW game. In this remix movie, the story of the dispute between two Chinese governmental departments on the licensing of the WOW and the the players’ rebellion of the electrotherapeutics to the “net-addiction” are narrated perfectly. The controversial electrotherapeutics was invented by a Chinese psychiatrist and supported by some parents. This is a representative work of Remix by grass-roots Chinese netizens. And it is released with CC-By-NC-SA. Watch it at here (I do wish someone may add English subtitles to it).

 

This post is contributed by Mr. Xuhui Chen, a new co-author of BLawgDog and a patent lawyer in China. The essay provides the passing rates of each year’s examination and other detailed analysis.

 

In this issue edited by Luckie Hong, the following news are included: (1) two guys are prosecuted for oporating unauthorized online-game sever of “Audition Dance Battle Online”; (2) A Beijing court ruled that funshion.com infringed copyright by providing downloading; (3) The Measures of payment of the textbooks’ royalties and the Measure of Protection of the Folklores are drafting; (4) Sany group, a major construction machinery producer wins a litigation on its trademark against the figure of “Benz”; (5) Tianjin high technology industry park promulgated a regulation encouraging the endevor of establishing well-known brands; (6) The series cases on the trademark “世界风SHIJIEFENG” was settled by the parties; (7) XGK, a company in Henan province, wins a lawsuit against State Intellectual Property Bureau for its decision of invalitation of the ZL8910393.8 patent; (8) powerdekor, a mojor producer of wood flooring in China, was involved in a patent law suit on its laminate flooring product; (9) Shanghai encourages the application of foreign patent with the maximum of 90,000 RMB financial aid.

 

This post is originally written in English. Click here.

 

This post is translated and extended in English, please click here for the English version.

 

This is a copy of the CNNIC’s notice requesting ISPs stopping to resolve the domain name which are not recorded in Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s website registration/licensing system.

 

The Hong Kong government proposed a new version of the Proposals for Strengthening Copyright Protection in the Digital Environment. Xie Lin and Donnie co-authored this short post, which briefly introduced the content of the new proposals.

 

In this issue edited by Luckie Hong, the following news are included: (1) Google apologized openly for the first time in the copyright dispute between Google and Chinese authors; (2) A US software firm sues China for 2.2 billion dollars for using its copyrighted software in the Green Dam; (3) 50% increase of the copyright registration in China, 2009; (4) Hanwang, a Chinese company finally agree to sell the “iPhone” trademark to Apple; (5) Hengyuanxiang, a major Chinese woolen provider, was trapped in a trademark dispute on the “figure of a Sheep”; (6) the tademark of “Pierre Cardin” was finally selled to a Chinese company for 37 million euro; (7) A Fujian firm won IP lawsuit against FKK, a Japanese chemical giant; (8) A patent dispute about Mercury-free batteries falls into a vicious cycle; (9) RichtekTechnology, a Taiwan firm, sued AMD and other 5 US companies for patent infringement

 

 

 

 

In this issue edited by Luckie Hong, the following news are included: (1) Zhejiang Higher Court promulgated a guide for hearing the online copyright disputes; (2) A case on the popular book “Mawen’s War” was ruled in Nanjing; (3) The appealing case on the copyright of electronic navigation map in China (the first one in China) was ruled by Guangdong Higher Court; (4) the exposure draft of the new trademark law was submitted to the Legal Affairs Office of the State Council; (5) Google sent a lawyer’s letter to an individula who is raising an objection to the trademark of Google’s Chinese name Guge (谷歌); (6) Beijing No.1 Intermediate people’s Court affirmed the validity of Judger Group’s (a Zhejiang-based garment enterprise) trademark of GEORGE and its figures; (7) The “Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Patent Infringement Dispute Cases” was promulgated by the Supreme People’s Court; (8) the new IMPLEMENTING REGULATIONS OF THE PATENT LAW OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA was passed by the State Council on 30 Dec. 2009; (9) Unilin loses its acts against patent infringing products of Yekalon in Germany.

 

This post firstly briefed Donnie’s definition of “Public Domain” in the context of Chinese copyright law in his PhD dissertation at China University of Political Science, then introduced the idea of “public domain day” on each January 1st for at this day, many works will fall into the public domain every year. Lastly, the post discussed some famous/interesting Chinese works that will be fall into the public domain since Jan. 1st, 2009.

 

In 2009, 170 entries are published at BLawgDog (including 38 English ones). Among them, Donnie contributed about 120 posts, other co-authors contributed about 40 ones. Then this article highlighted a few interesting posts during the year.

 

I annouced a very quick survey to Chinese twitter users: whether they are living abroad or inside of the GFW. 88.46% responed they stay in China. For the question “if you live inside of the GFW, are you use twitter frequently”, 70.21% said yes they are. For the question “if you live outside of the GFW, after going back to China, will you use twitter frequently”, 52.94% said yes, but 23.53% said he/she will use twitter only when she/he is out of GFW. For the question “Ask 5 of your QQ buddies randomly, how many of them are using twitter.” 53.85% of the respondent said none of their 5 QQ buddies is using twitter, and only 1.92% said all of the 5 QQ buddies are using twitter too.

 

Writen and edited by Luckie Hong, a co-author of BlawgDog, reporting the latest news in IP Law. This issue includes: (1) the promulgation of China’s new Tort Law, in which the ISP’s liability was eventually coded in a questionable way; (2) China association of literature copyright said Google has illegally scanned over 80,000 Chinese books; (3) Taiyuan intermediate peoples court in Shanxi Province issued a warrant of seizure to a karaoke bar for copyright infringement, which is the first time on mainland China; (4) the National Trademark Review and Adjudication Board petitioned to the Supreme Court for the Beijing Court’s rulling of its decision on the “Daohuaxiang” trademark; (5) the dispute of the trademark of *ST Sanlian (SH.600898) will be ruled soon; (6) JNJ (Johnson & Johnson) lost the case on the “Caile” trademark in China; (7) A Newyork listed Shenzhen company was sued for a patent infringement, the damages claimed by the plaintiff was 175 million RMB; (8) Aigo and Netac settled the patent dispute on USB flash drivers; (9) Up to 7 Dec. 2009, the annual number of patent granting is 3007,636.

 

This essay reviews the usage of the term “use” in China’s current Copyright Law, and find its definition is hightly confusional, which leads the uncertainty “individul use” in the list of limitations to the copyright in Art. 22 of the Copyright Law.

 

This post questioned the legitimacy of issuing a warrant of seizure to Karaoke bars for the reason of copyright infringement, which was happened in Taiyuan, the capital city of Shanxi Province.

The Splitting Internet Governance and the Down-to-Earth Solutions

Here is a very brief explanation to and my viewpoint of the latest development of China’s compaign to the Internet Controlling. Like my other ideas, this one might not be mature enough. But anyway, the reason of saying something is to get the commentaries and/or criticisms.

 

1. The definition of the Splitting Internet Governance: it has multiple meanings

(1) The separation of the Internet under the governance of ICCAN (at least namely) and the “Cinternet” under the the governance of the China’s government;

(2) the departed jurisdication of the Internet Governance in China.

 

2. The history of China’s Internet Controlling: My own division of periods

Regulation/legislation regardless the techonology neutrality (1996-2003)

–> Technology Control but very low frequency to enforce the regulations (2003-2005)

–> Begin to rely on the law enforcement but the technology control is still the main stream (2003-2009)

–> Using the law, and put the technology filtering mechanisms the second place (2009)

 

3. Pros and Cons of the above Transform in 2009

Pros: It finally go back to the track of lawyering.

Compare:
2007: No one know who ordered to shut down the website, and sometime no one know the reason.
2008: At least one knows who ordered to shut down the website.
2009: The reason of shut down is explained, and the subject is clearer and clearer

Cons:

(1) The old law (regulation was promulgated in 1990s, and the provisions are not compatible to the ) and the older approach by itself are arbitrary and immature, the enforcement may cause the officals find the benifit of the selective enforcement.

(2) The law may not compatible to the other parts of the “Internet”. The conflicts may be everywhere. The “dark net” may be highly developed.

 

4. the Down-to-Earth Solutions

… forthcoming…

Chinese Posts at BlawgDog from Dec. 14th to Dec. 20th: English Abstracts

From December 14th to December 20th, 2009, seven new Chinese entries have been posted to the Blawgdog. Here are the brief one-sentence abstracts for the English readers’ reference:

  • Top Ten 2009 Copyright News in China
    Chosen by the China Copyright Journal. I added the referral links to those news that had been commented at blawgdog.
  • It’s Wrong not because of Burdening the Duty of Carefulness, but because of Providing Joint Liability
    Some Beijing academicians oppose Article 36 of the drafting China’s Tort Law Bill by saying it should not burdens the ISPs the duty of carefulness. I clarified in this essay that the key problem of Article 36 is wrongfully providing a joint liability to the ISPs. 
  • Turning Exemption Provisions to the Criterion of Liability
    This article is also about Article 36 of the drafting China’s Tort Law Bill. I noted that, in the legal transplantation in recent years in China, the exemption provisions in foreign legislations are often (intentionally or mistakenly) shifted to be the criteria of liability. For example, Sec. 230 of the CDA in US is an exemption arrangement, while Article 36 is a criterion of liability; another example can be the safe harbour to the ISPs in the DMCA (on the so-called red flag test) was wrongfully transplanted to be a criterion of liability.
  • Xinhua News Agency: China will not Resolve the un-recorded Domain Names
    This entry has been translated into English at here.
  • I See the Historical Day
    This post mentioned the latest news: the Ministry of Industry and Information is proposing that the foreign enterprises “must register domain names from Chinese registrars if the names are used for business in China. The domain names oversea registered shall not be used in the businesses toward China.” And admitted the state will “supervise the domain names that launches the website oversea, and take measures to control the foreign name registrars”.
  • Reprint: Two Articles by Mr Youxi Chen
    Chen is a lawyer, and the vice Chair of the Committee of the Constitutional Law and Human Rights in China Bar Association. He published two articles at his website blaming the newspaper misleading the mass in reporting the news that lawyers are arrested in ChongQin. He argues that the Chinese lawyers are in very hard social environment now.
  • China IP Weekly Newsletter
    Writen and edited by Luckie Hong, a co-author of BlawgDog, reporting the latest news in IP Law. This issue includes SNDA Literature (NASDAQ: SNDA’s subcompany) annouced suing Baidu for over one million in infingement of copyright, and the new development of Netac v. Sony, and other 7 latest news.

Abstracts of the Chinese Posts at BlawgDog from Dec 3 to Dec 13

Seven Chinese posts have been posted to the Blawgdog from December 3rd to December 13th, 2009. Here are the brief one-sentence abstracts for the English readers’ reference: