Did you know that China has its first Civil Code? On May 28th, the National People's Congress approved the first Civil Code that will take effect on January 1st, 2021.

We talk then about a copyright battle between the famous Hello Kitty and Miffy, cute characters liked by people from all over the world, which have similar style. So here arises the question: can a drawing style qualify for copyright protection in China?

As usual we also cover some food law related topic. In the first article we discuss the case of the yoghurt ?? (JianAi or "Simple Love") which launched a new product branded as "????" (qita meile) which literally means "there is nothing else".

The other article discusses the plant-based "beef" and the related labeling regulations. Recently the topic became quite hot since also Starbucks adopted this kind of beef from two suppliers, "Beyond Meat" and "Omnipork".

In April this year the Chinese Supreme People's Court issued several Opinions. We focus here on 2 of them. The first one is briefly called "10 Opinions" and it contains Guiding Opinions on Several Issues concerning Proper Trial of Civil Cases related to the Covid19 epidemic, focusing on different aspects, like dispute resolutions, force majeure, protection of rights and so on.

The last article regards the Opinions about the strengthening of the Judicial protection of Intellectual Property Rights with special regard to the raise of the amount of tort compensation. Enjoy your reading!

Please click here to view the full newsletter.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.