The Bottleneck Of China'S Convention And Exhibition

Since China's accession to the WTO, China's MICE industry has been developing vigorously, and the "exhibition economy" has been formed in an all-round way, increasing at an annual rate of over 20%.

Although the scale of exhibition in China is expanding, it is compared with Germany and other international conference countries.

There are still many problems in the protection of intellectual property rights, which need to be valued and improved.

Now let's see what are the problems that impede the pace of China's Convention and exhibition industry.

Lack of legislation related to the protection of intellectual property rights is difficult to meet the actual needs.

At present, China aims at exhibition.

The specific provisions for protection were only the measures adopted by the Ministry of Commerce, the State Administration for Industry and commerce, the State Copyright Bureau and the State Intellectual Property Office in 2006 to approve the intellectual property protection of exhibitions (hereinafter referred to as the "protection measures").

The protection measures are obviously inadequate for various exhibitions of various names. The organizers can not rely on many specific tort problems and have to "solve them by internal regulations", such as the famous Canton Fair's handling and handling of alleged infringement of intellectual property rights (hereinafter referred to as the "complaint measures").

The introduction of such internal regulations has caused many problems such as the uncertainty of the scope of intellectual property protection, the disunity of complaint settlement procedures and the "law enforcement" standards, and there are still a lot of thorny infringement problems that can not be effectively solved.

The regulations on intellectual property rights protection of exhibitions are of low rank, so it is difficult to link up with other laws and regulations so as to fully protect the legitimate rights and interests of the parties concerned.

The protection measures are issued by the Ministry of Commerce, the State Administration for Industry and commerce, the State Copyright Bureau, the State Intellectual Property Office, etc., and belong to the category of departmental rules and regulations.

Compared with many large exhibition industry countries such as Germany, the relevant codes and laws have clearly stipulated the protection of exhibition intellectual property rights.

If the German civil code 940th, 936th and 916ff stipulate the preliminary injunction, if the owner of the right is to start a trade or goods fair at the beginning of the exhibition, it is hoped that a provisional warrant can be obtained in a short period of time, and a preliminary injunction can be applied.

Compared with the exhibition industry countries, China's exhibition intellectual property protection provides a low rank and weak effect, which directly leads to the lack of binding force on the infringement parties, so that repeated infringement and mass infringement of famous products can not be repeated.

Incomplete protection category leads to the lack of protection of related rights.

According to the advanced experience and practice of the international exhibition industry, the intellectual property protection of exhibition is not limited to the patent right, trademark right and copyright of the exhibits, but also involves the exhibition name, exhibition logo, booth design and so on.

However, the scope of intellectual property protection of exhibitions in China is not comprehensive, which is out of touch with international practices.

According to the "protection measures", intellectual property protection of exhibitions refers to the protection of patents, trademarks and copyrights in all kinds of economic and technological trade exhibitions, fairs, fairs, trade fairs and exhibitions held in People's Republic of China.

The seventh item of the "complaint handling method" only limits the scope of protection to exhibits, exhibits packaging, publicity materials and other display parts of the booth.

From the related practice of Guangzhou Canton Railway complaint station, the complainants' complaints mainly focus on the patent, trademark and copyright infringement of utility models and designs, and no other complaints.

The incomplete protection scope has led to the fact that some alleged infringement cases can not be effectively regulated, thus damaging the interests of the interested parties.

If there are flaws, the rights of the parties can not be fully remedied.

The defects of the procedure are mainly reflected in the short defense time and so on. This is the unique issue of the exhibition's intellectual property protection caused by the limitation of the time limit for exhibition. However, the relevant regulations in China are short of pre development procedures for handling complaints, so that complaints and processing are concentrated in the exhibition period, which is bound to cause a lot of contradictions.

For example, at present, the "complaint method" of the Canton Fair stipulates that only one working day's defense period for a respondent enterprise is contrary to the relevant intellectual property law provisions in China, which leads the organizers to be unable to conduct tort determination, and can only identify "suspected infringement", which directly leads to the lack of effective proof in the legal proceedings of the rights holders.

At the same time, the complainant generally reflects that it is extremely difficult to collect defense materials on a working day, which is not conducive to the protection of the rights of the enterprises being prosecuted. However, if the defense is unfavorable, it will affect the allocation of the booth of the Canton Fair, which is unfair to the respondent enterprises.

There are some difficulties in implementing the relevant provisions on intellectual property protection of exhibitions.

Intellectual property rights infringement in exhibitions usually occurs at the venue of the exhibition, and the intellectual property administration department of the exhibition site shall enforce specific laws during the exhibition period, such as the specific enforcement of the Canton Fair by the intellectual property administrative department of Guangdong province.

Due to the limitation of the exhibition time, a large number of intellectual property rights infringement problems occurred during the exhibition period caused the law enforcement departments to face a lot of difficulties, such as short time, lack of manpower, and difficult implementation.

According to the provisions of the "protection measures", the relevant facts and evidence of the case can be confirmed by the organizer of the exhibition. The intellectual property administrative department of the exhibition shall hand over the intellectual property administrative department with jurisdiction within 15 working days to handle the case according to law.

Due to the fact that the parties involved in the infringement cases are generally located outside the exhibition site, there are difficulties in the pfer from other places, so the cases are often shelved and the relevant provisions can not be carried out.