Are Zong Qinghou’s Proposed Trademark Reforms Viable?

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(By You Yunting) Recently, Chairman Zong Qinghou of Hangzhou Wahaha Group, acting as NPC representative (NPC refers to National People’s Congress), proposed a draft proposal revising the Trademark Law and strengthening the protection of well-known trademarks. We have previously introduced this case in the article Wahaha Group suing KMPG in China, please read this post for further background information. In my opinion, his draft indicates that Chinese entrepreneurs have already found that the growth of Chinese enterprises will be limited unless they improve the standard of protection offered under intellectual property rights law. However, his draft only focused on the intellectual property rights protection of the Wahaha Group, did not account for the interests of the public, and required special protection for the Wahaha Group beyond conventional protection from the government. As such, his draft is not practical.

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How A.O.SMITH Corporation Protects Its Interests against the Free Rider AOSIMIHE?

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(By Luo Yanjie) Trademark infringement via the unauthorized use of an enterprise’s name is a common phenomenon in China. Since the requirements for registering a company in Hong Kong are well known for being comparatively lax, many companies attempt to register well-known trademarks as an enterprise name in Hong Kong, and then run a business in Mainland China using this registered name, effectively fulfilling its role as a “free-rider” of another’s well known trademark.

 The A.O.SMITH Corporation was founded over 100 years ago in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, and is a global leader applying innovative technology and energy-efficient solutions to products marketed worldwide. However, the “American”AOSIMIHE (note: AOSIMIHE is a rough approximation of the name A.O. Smith transliterated into Chinese) Appliances (International) Group Ltd., registered in Hong Kong, is a free rider attempting to imply a connection between it and the United States-based A.O. Smith Corporation. Based on its Hong Kong company and trademark registration, the former succeeded in registering its “AOSIMIHE” trademark in Mainland China. Today, we’ll discuss how A.O.SMITH Corporation protected its legal interests against the “American” AOSIMIHE Appliances (International) Group Ltd.

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