12 May 2021
On April 30, 2021, Meishe Technology (美摄科技) announced it has sued Beijing ByteDance Technology Co., Beijing Weibo Vision Technology Co., and affiliated entities for computer software copyright infringement and trade secret misappropriation relating to ByteDance’s Douyin app (the Chinese version of TikTok) and other apps.
"This is significant because the amount of damages requested is over US$350 million, which could be quintupled under the newer punitive damages provisions for IP infringement in the Civil Code and Copyright Law," says Aaron Wininger, director of the China intellectual property law practice at Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner, in Silicon Valley. "Chinese courts also issue inunctions frequently, so there is a possibility of Douyin going offline if ByteDance loses."
Wininger says that if the allegations are true, ByteDance may wish to settle early to avoid the risk of punitive damages and an injunction.
"The main thing is companies should do due diligence on their own their code before release to make sure there is no infringement and then remove infringing code or license it," he says. "In practice, this may be hard though so companies should also formulate IP policies and make sure software engineers sign that they have received and read the policies.
Then, companies should regularly educate software engineers on IP policies."
Excel V. Dyquiangco
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