ELLALAN – Firm Updates

China Curbs Gaming and Live-streaming for Kids in 10-Year Plan

• The State Council published its 10-year national guidelines on children’s development on 27 September 2021 to tighten control over children’s online activities.  
• Online services operators are required to restrict the time and content that minors can spend on gaming, live streaming, audio and video streaming, as well as social networks. Operators should also forbid teenagers under 16 from signing up as live-streamers.
• Leaders will implement a unified electronic identity authentication system and take actions to review online content, protect children’s personal information and privacy and to improve the classification of games.
• Online entertainment providers in China must make themselves aware of all the changes to ensure compliance.

China Committed to Building a Powerful Nation with IP Rights

• In September, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council released the “Guidelines for Building a Powerful Country with Intellectual Property Rights (2021-2035)”. 
• Strategic goals set out in the Guidelines by 2025 include:

• • Strengthening IP protection, maintaining social satisfaction and improving brand competitiveness; 
  • Attaining the added value of patent-intensive industries at 13% of GDP;
  • Attaining the added value of copyright industries at 7.5% of GDP;
  • Achieving the total annual import and export amount of IP use fees at ¥350 billion yuan; and
  • Achieving the number of high-value invention patents at 12 per 10,000 people.

Canada Goose Fined for False Advertising

• Canada Goose received a penalty of 450,000 yuan fine for contravening the Chinese advertising law which prohibits false or misleading contents in advertisements.
• According to China’s National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, Canada Goose asserted that its coats are composed of North America’s Hutterities communities-sourced down feathers when, in fact, it uses other kinds of down in most products.
• The rise in regulatory attention to misleading and/or fraudulent advertisements in China does not come as a surprise. This followed the enactment of a stricter advertising law, which came into force back in September 2015.
• This case serves as a reminder to all advertisers of the need to substantiate the accuracy of the claims and statements in their advertisements in China.