Chinese firms firm on IPR
Posted at Apr 27, 05 in Shaolin Temple News

Chinese companies, especially brand name producers, have resolutely embarked on the road of safeguarding their rights after experiencing various lawsuits inivolving intellectual property rights (IPR) at home and abroad.

Hisense, a Chinese manufacturer of consumer electronic goods, won a lawsuit over Bosch and Siemens, which illegally registered the Chinese company's brand in Germany.

Monks of China's famed Shaolin Temple, commonly considered the birthplace of kung fu, a unique combination of Buddhism and Chinese martial arts, have also succeeded in safeguarding the temple's rights to its name by legal means.

Generations of Shaolin monks have devoted themselves to enriching and improving temple tradition and have gradually developed it into a complex and sophisticated system of fighting, widely recognized as kung fu. It became famous with the release of the movie "Shaolin Temple" 20-odd years ago and its global influence has grown since the 1970s due to its use in many foreign films.

Unfortunately, 80 unauthorized kung fu schools in China have used the name Shaolin, and more than 100 businesses, including those selling cars, beer, tires, furniture, and even wire, bear the Shaolin name, all without the permission of the temple.

In 1994, the temple, in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, won a lawsuit against a company in a nearby town that was using the Shaolin name to market sausage, the first case of this type.

To further defend its reputation and interests, the temple has set up a firm, the Henan Shaolin Temple Industrial Development Co Ltd, to protect and administer the intangible assets of the Shaolin Temple. In recent years, the temple applied for registration of both "Shaolin" and "Shaolin Temple" as trademarks, and similar efforts have been made in other countries.

Shi Yongxin, abbot of the temple, said, "The Shaolin Temple is an important piece of cultural heritage for all human beings.

To protect it, we must propose draft legislation to ensure appropriate action."In contrast with these two successful defenders, a number of Chinese businesses are still unaware of how to safeguard their interests through the rules of IPR protection.

About 40,000 trademark infringement cases were prosecuted in China in 2004, 51.6 percent more than in 2003. More than 5,000 of the cases involved foreign trademarks, up 158 percent year-on-year,according to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC).