Leveraging our extensive experience and fluent understanding of intellectual property issues, our award-winning IP team represented Dr. Ing. h.c.F. Porsche AG (Porsche) in a milestone win involving copyright protection for architectural designs in China. The Supreme People’s Court recognized the matter as 2008’s most influential intellectual property case in the country. The Court noted the dispute’s significance in terms of defining the scope of protection architectural works can receive under copyright law, as well as the use of civil liability to halt infringement.
The Beijing Porsche Center, completed in 2003, incorporates architectural features uniformly adopted for Porsche Centers worldwide. Its distinctive three-dimensional design concept was registered with China’s National Copyright Administration. Porsche claimed that the Beijing TechArt building infringed its copyrighted design.
Partners Chris Smith and Scott Palmer from our Beijing office led the team, and, together with associate Alice Hu, helped Porsche navigate the legal complexities of the unprecedented case. We secured a victory for Porsche before the Beijing 2nd Intermediate People's Court, which was upheld on appeal before the Beijing Higher People's Court in a final decision issued on 19 December 2008.
"It is the first case of its kind in China in which a court clearly established the parameters of protection for three-dimensional architectural works, and the first case in which the PRC courts issued an order to an infringer to substantially change the design elements of a completed building," says Palmer.
The court judgment included orders to cease all infringements and alter the architecture of the defendant’s building, publish a statement in the China Automotive News to "eliminate the effects of the infringements" and pay damages to Porsche in the amount of RMB¥217,079 (over USD30,000).
On 21 April 2009, the Supreme People's Court listed the case first in an announcement entitled "10 Major Cases in China’s Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property for 2008."