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Shanghai court stops production of copyright infringing goods |
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Written by Felix Da Silva (fdasilva@bitnip.com)
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Tuesday, 20 November 2007 |
 Carrefour, a supermarket, and Ningbo, a textile manufacturer, have both lost a lawsuit that involved the sale of bedding with designs
that infringed upon a painter's copyright, under a Shanghai court ruling.
According to Xinhua, this lawsuit was filed by a painter, Lu, in east China's Jiangsu Province.
He claimed that the patterns on pillow and quilt covers produced by Shanghai Leite Textiles Produce Co. Ltd. and sold in Ningbo Carrefour were identical to a painting that he had registered in the provincial copyright bureau in May 2005.
The Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court agreed and ruled that the textile company's use of the pattern was unauthorized and infringed upon Lu's copyright.
The court ordered the textile company to stop using the pattern and pay 20,000 yuan (~2,600 U.S. dollars) in damages and ordered Carrefour to stop selling the products.
I know that many people have the impression that China is the wild west when it comes to intellectual property. Even though it has some truth to it, stories like this are becoming more and more common as they're slowly catching up and recognizing the importance of intellectual property.
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