Archives: China Law Blog

China trademark lawyer
China Law Blog

China Trademark Protection: Is Your Chinese Manufacturer a Friend or a Foe?

Navigating Trademark Protection in China When dealing with China, protecting your brand’s identity is imperative. Every month, without fail, one of my law firm’s international IP lawyers are approached by companies facing a startling reality: their Chinese manufacturers have registered the company’s trademarks in China.* Understanding Trademark Theft in China The motivations behind these trademark registrations

China Manufacturing lawyers
China Law Blog

Who Owns Your China Product Manufacturer and Why it Matters

The Misconception of Foreign Ownership of Chinese Factories A common assumption among Western companies is that partnering with a Chinese manufacturer owned by a Western entity will lower risks and simplify the transaction. However, this belief is often based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Chinese business law and ownership structures. This post aims to dispel

International manufacturing price trap
China Law Blog

The International Manufacturing Price Trap

Contract manufacturing is fundamentally the purchase of a product. For any product purchase, the key terms are price, quantity and delivery date. And yet many buyers treat these key term as secondary issues. As buyers focus on exciting issues like product design and “getting to market”, buyers frequently fall into a trap. They assume that price, quantity and delivery terms will never be an issue. When these issues arise, as they virtually always do, the product buyer is in a situation where it has little to no room to negotiate. The overseas factory is now in control, and then it springs the price trap.

China employment law lawyer
China Law Blog

Understanding China Employment Laws and Employees

China is not an employment-at-will jurisdiction and terminating China employees is nearly always difficult. To make things even more challenging, many foreign companies doing business in China manage their China affairs from afar.

Five Keys to a International Trade Secret Protection
China Law Blog

Drafting China Contracts That Work

China Enforces Good Contracts Contrary to popular belief, China’s legal system offers robust mechanisms for contract enforcement, outperforming not only common perceptions, but also the judicial systems of the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in efficiency. At least this is what the World Bank said in its last (2020) report ranking countries on

China Repres
China Law Blog

Forming a China Subsidiary: Needed or Not

If I were to list the ten biggest/most common mistakes my law firm’s China lawyers see, not forming a China subsidiary when necessary and forming a China subsidiary when not unnecessary would both be on that list. We write constantly about the risks of doing business in China without a subisidiary. See Doing Business in

China WFOE Rules
China Law Blog

China WFOE Registered Capital Rules

We hear so many half-truths and misconceptions about registered capital that it’s hard to keep track of them all, let alone dispel them. Not for lack of trying, though: see e.g. China Company Law Myths: Registered Capital and Personal Liability and China WFOE Minimum Capital Requirements: The Goldilocks Rule. Without further ado, following please find

How to do business in China
China Law Blog

China Employee Hiring Myths

Foreign companies doing business in China must onboard their employee hires correctly. Unfortunately, there are many myths that make doing this less likely. This post briefly explains four common and potentially dangerous China hiring myths. 1. Hiring Without a Chinese Legal Entity (WFOE or Joint Venture) is Fine if You Bring on Only Independent Contractors.

China IP lawyers
China Law Blog

The US-China Trade War and the IP Elephant in the Room

The Trump Administration is claiming China’s government forces American companies to relinquish its IP to China. Having worked on hundreds of China transactions that involve IP, I view things rather differently. I have never been involved in a China transaction where it has been clear that the Chinese government has forced our client to relinquish

eight ball on fire
China Law Blog

China Counterfeiting: 8 Common Myths

1. There’s no way to protect my brand in China against counterfeits, so there’s no reason to try. This is both false and self-defeating. China offers a number of ways to protect your IP. The first and most important step is to file a trademark application in China to cover your goods or services. This