from: mangala kambi

to: judgejiang@china.com

sent: monday, february 21, 2005 2:57 pm

subject: urgent help

hello sir,

my name is miss.mangala. i am doing my my post graduation in law from national law schol of india university, bangalore,karnataka( india ).i am doing a project on the comparative study of the laws regarding semiconductor integrated circuit layout designs (semiconductor chips) of various countries, including china.i am concentrating on the aspect of "originality".

i will be very thankfull and gratefull to you if you would be kind enough to give me some information regarding the same. i have downloaded the law regarding semiconductor integrated circuit layout designs of your country. i am unable to get any case-laws or judgements of the supreme court on the issue of 'originality' of the semicinductor chips or the layout-designs. atleast the name of the case with citation (or brief narration of the law laid down if possible) is all that i am looking for. it will suffice even me even if you send me the citation of the case. i will look for it on the net.

one more kind request to you is that i do realise the kind of important post you are holding, still i would like to request you to send me any material you come across as soon as possible as i just have 4 days with me. i need to wind up my project before the 25th of feb 2005.

hoping to see your reply soon, thanking you

                                                                                yours sincerely,

                                                                                                      mangala

dear miss mangala,

thank you for your mail and i am really interested in your research work.。 as far as i know semiconductor chips are protected by a special regulation of state department in china. the owner should go to patent office and register their chips( it is not a patent). then china court could protect the owner of the right of chip. the regulation was issued in three years ago however there has been no infringing case filed in courts in china up to now. one reason is that the technology concerning chips developed very fast and some big companies always control the field. therefore we can not be able to find some cases in the field. i hope i am not misunderstanding your questions.

regards,

judge jiang

www.chinaiprlaw.cn

beijing

china

respected sir,

thank you very much for replying to my mail. i sincerely than you sir. i do understand that there are no cases on infringement however i needed information as to the cases regarding the concept of 'originality'.if there are no cases then can you please throw some light on it. there is no definition in the regulation as regards to what exactly is ment by originality. how does the registering authority decide as there are know guidelines for the same. sir in short i needed the criteria or the requirements for 'originality'. i understand that since the regulation is new and the judiciary till now has had no chance to express itself on the matters concerning this law. all that it says is as under:

"the peoplefs republic of china

regulations on the protection of layout-design of integrated circuits

(adopted at the 36th executive meeting of the state council on march 28, 2001, promulgated by decree no. 300 of the state council of the peoplefs republic of china on april 2001, and effective as of the date of october 1, 2001)

gcccccarticle 4. any layout-design under protection shall be original, which means that the layout-design is the intellectual achievement of the creator himself, and it is not a commonplace among creators of layout-designs and manufacturers of integrated circuit at the time of its creation.

where a layout-design under protection consists of several commonplace layout-designs, the combination of these layout-designs taken as a whole shall be in compliance with the conditions referred to in the preceding paragraph.

article 5. protection to layout-design under these regulations shall not extend to the ideas, processing methods, operations and mathematics concepts.ccc..h

the indian law is also on the same lines. there no guidelines as to what exactly is ment by originality. may be as far as i can understand it , it has to be decided on the basis of the facts and circumstances of each case;there cannot be some fixed methods for the determination of origignality. i am tackling these questions and weouldundoubtedly need your expert judicial opinion on this issue.

sir i am sorry for expressing it so elaborately. hope i am not bothering or taking a lot of time out of your busy schedule.

hoping to get a reply soon from you,with atmost gratitude and deep reverence, thank you very much again.

                                                                                                  your sincerely,

                                                                                                             mangala

dear miss mangala,

sorry, i am a professional judge and very busy recently. some cases are waiting for me to handle. furthermore i have no case experiences in the field. i think that the article 4 is the question's answer.... shall be original, which means that the layout-design is the intellectual achievement of the creator himself, and it is not a commonplace among creators of layout-designs and manufacturers of integrated circuit at the time of its creation. if i would meet the same case the article would be my guidelines and standards. therefore i could not say more. you could use "google" find out some information and read a little them in chinese. we have lots of information in chinese in the field.

hope you will be successful.

regards,

judge jiang zhipei

www.chinaiprlaw.cn

mangala,

you could find some usuful information from the website. but in chinese and you could try use google in english. judge jiang

http://www.sipo.gov.cn/sipo/zscqb/lilun/t20030227_12058.htm

respected sir,

thank you very much for your opinion and i am really sorry for disturbing you. thank you sir for kindness for taking time out of your busy schedule to reply me. thank you very much.

 if any time you happen to visit india do remember me , i will be delighted to have you as my guest.

                                                                                                  regards,

                                                                                                       yours sincerely, 

                                                                                                                 mangala.....