New Oriental appeals for ruling ( 2003-10-14 00:19) (China Daily)
The Beijing-based New Oriental Education Group has appealed to the Beijing
High People's Court to revisit a copyright and trademark ruling that ruled in
favour of US-based Education Testing Service (ETS) and another educational
institution.
The Beijing High People's Court and the Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's
Court confirmed yesterday that the appeal had been lodged. The former will now
handle the matter but a hearing date has not been set.
In the first ruling by the Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court in late
September, New Oriental was ordered to pay 10 million yuan (US$1.2 million) to
ETS for copyright and trademark infringements.
It illegally published TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and GRE
(Graduate Record Examination) papers on the Chinese mainland without
authorization from ETS.
Xu Xiaoping, the group's spokesman, told China Daily yesterday New Oriental
is appealing because it believes the trademark right used in the ruling was
unclear, the law was interpreted erroneously during the case and it had been too
harshly penalized.
Xu is also a trustee of New Oriental, one of China's most prestigious English
language schools for people preparing to enter overseas universities. It
occupies over 50 per cent of the market share on the mainland.
New Oriental declined to make a public apology in the authoritative judicial
affairs newspaper Legal Daily after the initial finding as it "apologized
through the media many times after the judgment, to ETS and Chinese students,''
Xu said.
According to the spokesman, New Oriental began communicating with ETS in
1995, trying to achieve authorization to publish its TOEFL and GRE papers.
"But New Oriental and other training groups on the Chinese mainland were
refused the right until September, about a dozen days before the judgment,'' Xu
said.
Tom Ewing, spokesman for the ETS headquarters told China Daily yesterday that
they are confident and hope that the court will confirm their decision and rule
ETS' favour again in the second instance.
He said:`` ETS is never concerned with money (compensation), but to give
Chinese students fair chances and test scores respected
worldwide.''
