The issuance of the arrest warrant has escalated the patent dispute case that has lasted for more than two years. In recent years, with the development of China's economy and the development of Chinese companies and the beginning of international competition, intellectual propert

According to Bloomberg on June 26, the US Federal District Court of San Francisco issued an arrest warrant on the former general manager of Fujian Jinhua, Chen Zhengkun and three others (the other two were He Jianting and Wang Yongming, engineers who switched from Micron to , UMC, , on the grounds of "stealing commercial secrets of Micron's DRAM technology." The issuance of the arrest warrant has escalated the patent dispute case that has lasted for more than two years.

In recent years, with the development of China's economy and the development of Chinese companies and the beginning of international competition, intellectual property disputes between China and foreign companies have begun to occur frequently. Unexpectedly, such cases often end with the loss of domestic companies. So, how should China deal with patent disputes with foreign companies, especially American companies?

Beijing Vision Baoding Business Department Mr. Li Yang, Deputy Director of Beijing Xinhua Vision,

Focus on Sino-US intellectual property disputes

Before talking about Sino-US intellectual property disputes, we have to mention the general background of Sino-US trade conflict. Li Yang pointed out that the Sino-US trade conflict began with the US government imposing an additional 25% punitive tariff on 818 products imported to the United States on July 6, 2018. By December 13, 2019, China and the United States announced that they had reached the so-called "Phase One" agreement and terminated the implementation of the 15% punitive tariff (worth about US$160 billion) that the US will impose further, and had a total of 526 days and 13 rounds of bilateral consultations.

Li Yang said that the way of handling Sino-US trade disputes has gone through a process from "unilateral to bilateral and then to unilateral". First, the WTO multilateral system restricts the US "301 clause", prompting the United States to move from unilateral to multilateral. After President Trump came to power, the handling of Sino-US trade disputes has returned to the unilateral model again.

" Before , the focus of the Sino-US trade dispute was trade deficit and exchange rate manipulation, and the current focus has changed to intellectual property rights!" Li Yang said that if the trade deficit is purely used as the point of contention, there will be considerable opposition even at home. Therefore, the Trump administration changed its use of intellectual property rights as the primary and core issue in dealing with Sino-US trade frictions, and advocated that government-led forced technology authorization and the theft of trade secrets led to a huge trade deficit in the United States. It not only successfully shifted the focus, but also cleverly condensed the internal consensus of the United States to a certain extent.

Five major accusations of intellectual property

"Section 301" investigation report lists five allegations of intellectual property: (1) Improper acquisition of trade secrets through technology transfer; (2) Discriminatory treatment of technology licenses; (3) Targeted and intervening "going out" investment strategy; (4) Infringement of US commercial computer networks and the use of the network to steal trade secrets; (5) Other laws, regulations or policies that lack appropriate protection of intellectual property rights;

These five major accusations prompted the Chinese government to make some policies and measures. Changes:

·National industrial policy is cautiously promoted (international factors must be considered in the promotion process);

·Talent introduction and planning will be more rigorous;

·Trade secret Infringement scope has been expanded, relevant domestic laws have been revised;

·Investigation and punishment of counterfeit trademark products on the Internet will be increased;

·The risk of infringement of trade secrets in China (such as DDR manufacturing) will be increased;

·The management of generic drugs will be strengthened.

Integrated Circuit Intellectual Property Common Knowledge and Notes

The three major intellectual property rights related to integrated circuits are: patent rights, layout design rights and trade secret rights .

is first of all, patent , which mainly refers to the possibility of infringement by both patent law and forward and reverse design; secondly, layout design rights , which refers to the infringement by the integrated circuit layout design regulations and reverse engineering improper use can cause infringement; finally, prohibits unfair competition rights (trade secret rights) , which mainly refers to the infringement by opposing unfair competition laws and obtaining company secrets through improper means.

Intellectual property rights related to "301 clause" : copyright, trademark rights, trade secret rights .

. Several intellectual property rights involving criminal crimes are:

(1), infringement of trade secrets;

(2), counterfeit trademarks;

(3), copyright infringement: If the amount is large, illegal income (30,000 yuan in individuals and 100,000 yuan in company), it constitutes the crime of copyright infringement and will be punished. Issues that should be noted in the "trademark rights" of

·When chip sales, responsibilities should be clarified in the contract for counterfeit trademark matters and obligation reminders;

·Agents require that chip markings must be standardized when selling according to the customer's brand;

·Customer trademarks must provide trademark acquisition certificate;

·If the customer cannot provide trademark acquisition certificate and cannot identify the ownership of the trademark, the contract stipulates that the customer complies with and bears responsibility;

·When a third-party trademark outside the customer must be rejected;

·Trademarks are not only graphics and text, but also include letters and letters + numbers.

"Trade Secret Right" should be noted:

Commercial Secret refers to commercial information such as technical information and business information that are not known to the public, have commercial value and have corresponding confidentiality measures by the right holder.

The "three requirements" of trade secrets refer to: not being aware of the public, having commercial value, and taking appropriate and reasonable confidentiality measures . The condition for infringing on the right to trade secrets is "illegal acquisition" .

Article 9, paragraph 3 of the " Anti-Unfair Competition Law" clearly states that if a third party knows or should know the right holder of the trade secret, the employee, former employee, other unit or individual who still obtains, discloses, uses or allows others to use the trade secret to change the trade secret, it shall be deemed to be infringing on the trade secret.

So, what are the ways to avoid infringement of trade secrets?

According to the Anti-Unfair Competition Law and the "Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Laws in the Trial of Unfair Competition Civil Cases", there are mainly the following ways to "legal sources" of trade secrets:

(1) independent development income;

(2) obtain technology or secrets through reverse engineering;

(3) right holder Leaking trade secrets by themselves;

(4) Legal acquisition or permission to obtain trade secrets;

(5) Personal trust;

Li Yang pointed out that in response to the case of Fujian Jinhua and UMC suspected of stealing Micron's commercial secrets, the US believes that some component characteristics mastered in the DRAM technology designed by Jinhua and UMC cannot be obtained through reverse engineering. The process of obtaining results by Jinhua and UMC is too easy, and the US believes that there is a suspicion of using illegal acquisition of technology.

At the end of the speech, Li Yang also explained the important role of reverse engineering to protect by international treaties and laws of various countries, as well as the important role of reverse engineering in the defense of trade secrets .

In short, as Chinese companies are increasingly involved in international competition, intellectual property disputes are inevitable. Chinese companies must be familiar with relevant legal knowledge, on the one hand, to defend their intellectual property rights from infringement, and on the other hand, to prevent easily being involved in unwarranted international intellectual property disputes.