Welcome to IP Dragon’s Monthly Roar, your roundup of IP news in China. Written by IP Dragon’s brand new reporter “IP Lion”. In this IP Dragon’s Roar, Dragon Nest prevails over Shadow of Dragon in an “iconic” case, streaming hijacking at the Olympics, and Luckin Coffee’s trademark registration to connect to Generation Z.
Mind your archers and mages: Shanghai IP Court found copyright infringement by comparing the characters of game icons [IP Lion]
The Shanghai Intellectual Property Court (“Shanghai IP Court”) ruled in a recent judgment that materials from the mobile phone game 龙之影 (Shadow of the Dragon) constitute copyright infringements on another game named龙之谷 (Dragon Nest).
The Shanghai IP Court held that game icons have originality and artistic value and are able to constitute artworks in the sense of copyright law and thus should be protected. The icon of龙之影claimed by the infringed party is composed of red and blue colors, and the left and right are spliced by two face images with the same look, together with different colors and different visual effects. The court found that this icon has high originality and artistic value and can be protected as an artwork under copyright law.
Apart from above, Shanghai IP Court also found that the copyrights of “warrior”, “priest” and “archer” of 龙之谷 were also infringed by龙之影.
In its reasoning, Shanghai IP Court compared two “warrior” characters against one another, a “priest” against a “mage”, and an “archer” against an “elf” that is contained in the icon, and found that compared with the icons of 龙之谷, the icons of龙之影are composed of similar human faces, similar color matching of the left and right scenes, and the contour, hairstyle, and expression of the faces contained are also similar to the icon of龙之谷. Pursuant to this, the court found the copyright of龙之谷is infringed.
So, what kind of character you prefer to play in a MMORPG game?
News sources (in Chinese): http://www.foridom.com/index.php/Index/article/id/915
Court judgment (in Chinese): https://wenshu.court.gov.cn/website/wenshu/181107ANFZ0BXSK4/index.html?docId=2090a034b3024879b9d6ae1a00e77e15
China’s first litigation injunction on unauthorized broadcasting of Winter Olympic Games [IP Lion]
To maximize the profit from the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games (“Winter Olympic Games”), China’s webcast giants have invested a great effort in the preparation of broadcasting this world-class event, including legal preparations.
A recent-disclosed injunction from the Court of Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone (“the Court”) shows that Tencent applied for a pre-litigation injunction against the illegal broadcasting of Winter Olympic Games programs and was supported by the court.
The Court confirmed that Tencent (the applicant) invested a huge amount of cost to obtain the authorization of broadcasting the Winter Olympic Games on its video platforms, which built its advantage in market competition. In view of the Court, the operator of the “TV Home” app (the respondent of Tencent’s application) provided broadcasting service of the Winter Olympic Games without permission from Tencent and further used such service as an advertising point to attract users to download the “TV Home” app. The Court found such conduct from the TV home is disobeying of good faith and business ethics, which resulted in the loss of Tencent video users and disturbing the market competition order (together with the social interests behind the orderly broadcasting of the Olympic Games), and thus could constitute unfair competition. Accordingly, the Court injuncted the respondent to immediately stop providing relevant contents of the Winter Olympic Games in its app.
What’s interesting about this injunction is that it relates to the bigger picture behind streaming hijack, user loss, and unfair competition: the rapid growth of online social platforms on mobile devices in the past decade. Namely, when we compare this injunction to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games, it is not so hard to find that, back then, Tencent was not as huge as it is nowadays, and the broadcasting activities were only limited to TVs and PC webs/apps, no smartphones and no relevant apps on mobile devices. Back then, the famous anti-trust and anti-unfair-competition case “Tencent vs. 360” in China’s Supreme People’s Court did not exist, and netizens in China were living in a peaceful world that would not be bothered by fragmented information from mobile devices. Will you miss the days a decade ago?
News sources (in Chinese): https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/e3oSivUangJ6RsYaXaosqw
Court judgment (in Chinese): https://wenshu.court.gov.cn/website/wenshu/181107ANFZ0BXSK4/index.html?docId=bfb9799918b64a60808eae5e000937c6
Aiming at Generation Z? Luckin Coffee’s “歪歪滴艾斯” trademark registration is pending [IP Lion]
Apart from the talked about netizens in China above, recently, Luckin Coffee successfully registered the trademark of “歪歪滴艾斯”, a symbol of the Chinese generation Z. The relevant trademark was applied in May 2021, which is classified as advertising sales and convenience food. However, on the official website of China’s trademark department, the “歪歪滴艾斯” is now in pending, more specifically, it is in the process of the appeal of refusal.
What’s interesting is, 歪歪滴艾斯[Wāi wāi dī ài sī] is a direct transliteration of the internet trendy word “YYDS” in Mandarin for recent years. As an abbreviation, it means the full name of “Yong yuan de Shen”, that is, “eternal God” in Mandarin. This catchphrase comes from the live stream of the League of Legends (“LoL”) game and has been used by the netizens of Post-00 and post-90 generations on various occasions. Now this YYDS is registered as a trademark by Luckin coffee, which also reveals the importance attaches to the young people’s market from the view of Luckin coffee.
In fact, YYDS originated from a live stream of a Chinese celebrity, who is a fan of professional a LoL player named “UZI”. He shouted many times during the live stream that “Uzi, eternal God.” Later, it was regarded as an exclamation and used by netizens to show their highest praise to almost everything. Some reports show that the use of YYDS even spreads outside of the mainland and is used by young people in regions such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and also by the young Chinese in countries like Singapore, Malaysia, and Australia.
In fact, to get closer to young people, Luckin Coffee [in Chinese:瑞幸咖啡(Ruìxìng Kāfēi)] launched the advertising film “Luckin YYDS” in May 2021, ahead of its competitors. In the same period, “#Luckin coffee applied to register the YYDS trademark#” had quickly become a trendy search topic on China’s largest microblog platform, Weibo (a platform that could be regarded as the Chinese version of Twitter).
As one of the generation Z (or above), are you into this way of marketing?
News sources (in Chinese): https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/obksCN8g5mIlbID5pOct0A
Court judgment (in Chinese): http://wcjs.sbj.cnipa.gov.cn/txnDetail.do?b9La8sqW=LQLS4AlqEHNqrfDXW.thu1JTe9RM_kzi4herwUzT3ikGQZH8UEGzQEGvz7dZSooJci_y34Tj_yPkx8ig3jgrVDoFxo39zjDBSpvLCIAKdwb53UBNOD558aOykQyvWM9txbwKN.evGhKwAzKS1.eUmH5gFuUIcJnL1yYguxkBHgvZ6mgFgr4ox5FdRRTCTZaBMi2sD2jBHsa