Reactie van Rick Rodriguez op 20 Juli 2021 op 15.27

Trademark protection in China

The Chinese market is huge and evolving, so there are many benefits to registering your trademark in the registers of the State Administration of Industry and Commerce of the People's Republic of China (SAIC) Trademark Office.

Since the TRIPS Agreement came into force, the legislation on the registration and protection of trademarks in China has become more and more similar to that of Europe. Nevertheless, the process was gradual and not completed, as the TRIPS Agreement only provided for basic rules that could be implemented by the states and divided the agreement in the long term according to their legal situation. Companies that do not immediately register their trademark in China can face many problems when trying to combat counterfeiting of their products in order to gain trademark protection in China.

If you do not register in time, there is a great risk that your trademark has already been “copied” and registered by a local company in China before you start expanding in the Chinese market.

In fact, unlike courts in Europe and the United States, Chinese courts can completely oppose the global practice of protecting unregistered trademarks of well-known companies. In 1996, for example, a Chinese clothing company registered a horse graphic that was identical to Ferrari's. The Chinese Trademark Office rejected Ferrari's opposition to the registration, arguing that the Chinese company had applied for the graphic to be registered first (first-to-file principle). Ferrari appealed the decision, arguing that the symbol was recognizable as a symbol of the Ferrari brand around the world, including China. After eleven years of proceedings, the First Intermediate Court in Beijing ruled in 2007 that Ferrari's horse graphics were not a well-known brand among Chinese consumers and did not deserve legal protection, even though the name "Ferrari" was.

In the near future, the development of Chinese technology and trade could change the situation, which Chinese companies are interested in in trademark protection as well as European and American companies, which could make competition even tougher.

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