Effective February 1, 2005, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce adopted new franchising "provisional measures" which affect both foreign and local franchisors. The domestic law of 1997 regarding franchising has thus been repealed. The new law and its regulations require certain pre-sale disclosures to purchasers and registration with both the national and regional authorities by foreign franchisors. The requirements under this law are some of the most comprehensive in the world, and much is yet to be learned regarding implementation and interpretation of the measures and regulations moving forward. Click here for more information.
Litigation increasingly involves requests for the discovery of electronic documents, including e-mail. From a defense perspective, this raises significant liability concerns: The disarmingly informal nature of e-mail creates the single greatest source of “smoking guns.” The failure to preserve requested e-documents—even unintentionally—once litigation commences can result in stiff sanctions. Click here to learn more about how you can protect yourself.
Intellectual Property
The proposed bill, H.R. 683, the “Trademark Dilution Improvement Act of 2005,” recently approved by the House Judiciary Committee, provides important and necessary improvements to the Federal trademark dilution statute to increase certainty for all parties involved in trademark disputes. This new legislation provides a more provable cause of action to famous marks owners while protecting free speech. Click here for more information.
Described by intellectual property legal experts as one of the most important cases of the decade, the Federal Circuit en banc in Phillips v. AWH Corp., revisited claim interpretation to provide clarity on how the Federal Circuit interprets claims. Click here for more information.
Kirton & McConkie hosted representatives of the Riverside Economic Zone, Nanjing, China on a visit to Salt Lake City in March, 2005. Mr. Yuxiang Chen, Mayor of Jiangning District of Nanjing, and Mr. Huiyuan Duan, Foreign Investment Commissioner, met with Utah's Mandarin-speaking governor, Jon M. Huntsman, Jr. They also met with officials of the Chamber of Commerce and addressed about 50 businessmen at a breakfast briefing.
Mr. Chen explained that Riverside Economic Zone is located along the Yangtze River and is being developed as an export-oriented industrial belt. The zone covers approximately 200 square kilometers in its overall planning area, with an initial startup area of 50 square kilometers. The zone has all basic infrastructures in place. It is located near an airport, a railway station, an international port and three high grade highways. The zone offers tax incentives such as no income tax for the first two years of operations, a lower income tax rate after the first two years and special treatment on value-added tax and land tax. It will discuss special concessions for significant manufacturing investment projects of over 20 million dollars. For more information of the Riverside Economic Zone, please contact Richard G. Johnson, Jr., at: rjohnson@kmclaw.com.
In some foreign countries, especially in the financially strapped Third World, governmental investment controls, currency exchange laws and other restrictions sometimes make it much more difficult to take funds out than to bring them into the country. Even if the return of capital to foreign investors is not legally restricted, the official rate of exchange may not always make it financially attractive. Click here for more information.
Steve Averett has been named the new editor of the iiBulletin. He graduated from the BYU library school in 1985 and the BYU law school in 1988. He is a teacher, reference librarian, and assistant director of externships at the BYU law school. He has been at the BYU law school since 1997 and teaches classes on legal research, domestic relations, and judicial work. Before joining BYU in 1997, he worked at the Idaho State Law Library. He previously worked as a judicial clerk in Pocatello, Idaho, as a staff attorney at Utah Legal Services, and at the University of Mississippi Law Library. Nikki Davis will continue to co-edit the bulletin until she begins law school this fall.
