The first session of the 2016 China Law Salon was held on March 25, 2016 at the W&B headquarters in the Shanghai United Press Tower. Over thirty corporate representatives and practitioners were invited to attend the lecture entitled “Identification of Trademark Infringement, Online Counterfeits and Parallel Imports”. Mr. Yizhou Liu, attorney for the W&B Copyright and Trademark Litigation Department acted as the keynote speaker.

The lecture was divided into three parts “Standards for the Establishment of Trademark Infringement”, “Countermeasures to Online Counterfeits” and “Countermeasures to Parallel Imports”. In the first part, Mr. Liu illustrated the nature of trademarks by citing pertinent provisions of the Agreement On Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (“TRIPs”). He pointed out that since the core information carried by trademarks is goodwill; in essence trademark infringement is a mismatch between the holder of goodwill and the source of the goods, which is caused by improper trademark use. He then presented several key concepts, including “commercial use is the life of a trademark”, “prevention of confusion is the basis of trademark rights” and “business operators must steer clear of confusion”. He illustrated these concepts by referencing several cases to help trademark owners prevent infringement. In “Countermeasures to Online Counterfeits” and “Countermeasures to Parallel Imports”, he further analyzed the background and status quo of the distribution of online counterfeits, the definition of the scope and the specific forms of counterfeits, and several specific enforcement countermeasures, in order to show enterprises how to combat online counterfeiting and enforce their rights and interests.

The audience found Liu’s lecture informative and enlightening due to its combination of theory with case analysis, and several members expressed a hope for similar lectures in the future.