Why Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court Decided the Contractual Terms not Protect by the Copyright Law?

(By Luo Yanjie) Abstract: The Implementing Regulations of the Copyright law stipulates “works” under the protection of the Copyright Law shall be under originality. “Originality” can be divided into two parts: independent creation and the minimum intellectual creation.

An enterprise filed a suit to the courts, alleging the defendant copied its contractual terms. One would wonder whether the terms of a contract shall be protected by the Copyright Law. The Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court provided an answer that the terms in a contract may not be protected by the Copyright Law owing to the expression limitation of a contract. Here are the introduction to this case and our opinions for the following.

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Why China’s Courts Held an Ambiguous Attitude to the Rush Registration of Another’s Works as a Trademark?

When handling a dispute between trademark and copyright, Chinese courts always apply a rather high standard to determine whether works protected under trademark law will also receive protection under the copyright law. Our website previously discussed this question in the posts Analysis on Proof Requirements in Figurative Trademark Infringing Others’ Copyright Cases by China Court and Why the Calligraphic Character’s Copyright Failed to Defeat Trademark Right.Today, we’d like to introduce a case regarding conflicts between a work of fine art and a trademark, due to the identical combination of Chinese characters and English letters.

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