On the afternoon of October 28, 2021, the Legal Committee of the Quality Brand Protection Committee of the China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment (QBPC) held an online exchange meeting on the protection of intellectual property rights on e-commerce platforms and the revision of E-commerce Law. The keynote speaker Xue Jun, Professor of Peking University Law School, Director of Peking University E-Commerce Law Research Center and Legal Counsel of the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), had a lively and thorough online exchange with more than 40 representatives of QBPC member companies. Legal Committee Vice Chair Amanda Dong hosted the meeting.
Since 2018, QBPC has been working with the Law School of Peking University on a research project over the implementation of the provisions of the E-Commerce Law related to intellectual property rights. After several rounds of discussion with the law school based on their in-depth research of the common and typical problems in the industry, QBPC members came up with suggestions and ideas for system design, which have been adequately taken into consideration by the relevant departments in the process of rule making. The rules mainly include Official Reply of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law to Disputes over Internet-related Intellectual Property Right (IPR) Infringement, Guiding Opinions on the Trial of Intellectual Property Civil Cases Involving E-Commerce Platforms, Draft Amendments on Related Regulations of the E-commerce Law and Guidance on the Implementation of the Platform's Main Responsibilities (Draft for Comments) issued by the Supreme People's Court.As the concluding session of the research project, this meeting was based on the results of the cooperation between the two sides and the latest developments in the protection on e-commerce platforms. The two sides had exchanges and interactions on how to strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights of credible right holders and the system design of the corresponding management for e-commerce platforms.
Xue firstly explained the legal system of e-commerce law, the Civil Code and the corresponding judicial interpretations, and reviewed the hot issues of e-commerce platform IPR protection in E-commerce Law. Not only did he summarize the pain points and difficulties that QBPC members had been concerned about, but also introduced how to understand and perceive the relevant issues from the perspective of e-commerce platforms. At the same time, he commented on the QBPC's recent submission to the SAMR on the revision of the E-commerce Law, and provided fundamental and institutional advice to the QBPC and its member companies on the direction of IPR protection on e-commerce platforms, i.e. to become credible right holders so as to enjoy lower complaint thresholds, quicker responses, tougher take-down measures and other favoured treatment by e-commerce platforms.
Michael Yu, Legal Committee Chair, thanked Xue for his sharing and discussed with him on the active prevention and control obligations, and filtering measures that platforms should undertake based on existing technologies, the channels for complaining about webpage infringement, and the obligations of e-commerce platforms in anti-notification auditing.
During the Q&A session, the attendees also raised questions on design patent complaints, application of injunctions, control of algorithms and recommendation mechanisms, protection of intellectual property rights in social media and other new e-commerce platforms, etc. Xue responded to each of them and shared his views and thoughts.