Shall Silk Street Undertake Compensation Liability to LOUIS VUITTON MALLETIER for Trademark Infringement?

silk street

(By Luo Yanjie) Abstract:  Market-managers should fulfill their duty to exercise reasonable care to cease trademark infringement. “Intentionally facilitating an infringement by another person or party of an exclusive right to use a registered trademark including through acts such as storage, transportation, postage, concealment and similar” shall be deemed as an infringement of the exclusive right to use a registered trademark.

Our website once introduced a post that the Name on the American Notorious List Could Also be the Well-known Trademark in China. Actually, Silk Street is not a company that sells fake goods, buta market consisting of many small shops. It is undeniable that the market of Silk Street was once listed alongside the Pirate Bay in the notorious market by USTR because it has sold too many fake products. Considering there are many fake products in Silk Street, the market manager shall be found liable. In today’s post, we would like to introduce and discuss a case where the market manager was found liable for its shops’ selling fake goods.

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Could Audi Succeed in Applying for “SQ2”, “SQ4” and “Q9” Trademarks in Mainland China?

audi

(By Luo YanjieAbstract: A subsequently applied trademark must not be identical with or similar to a prior trademark. The trademark submitted for registration must have sufficient characteristics that allow it to be distinguishable. A few days ago, foreign media outlets reported that Audi had filed several trademarks application for model names, including SQ2, SQ4 and Q9. This is a sign that these vehicles will likely be sold in China in the future.

According to our research, further information about those trademarks is not yet available in Mainland China. This is likely either because Audi has not started the application procedures, or because the Trademark Office has not yet input Audi’s application information online. However, this does not affect our analysis on the outlook of those trademarks in mainland China.

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Comments on the Trademark Squatting of HERMES

Another Lesson from the Negligence of Trademark Localization

It’s reported (note: the link is in Chinese) that the well-known luxury brand HERMES INTERNATIONAL has registered its international trademark of HERMES in China as early as in 1985, while its official Chinese name 爱马仕 is unregistered. While, on the other hand, Dafeng Garment (the “Dafeng”), a clothing company admitted in Foshan City of Guangdong Province registered the Chinese trademark of爱马仕 in September of 1995, though it was disputed later in 1997 and 2001, Dafeng still owns the right of the trademark. In 2009, HERMES INTERNATIONAL registered爱马仕 in the class of tie manufacture, which was refused by the trademark office and remained rejected by the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (the “Board”) after the review procedure. After that HERMES INTERNATIONAL filed the lawsuit against the Board, but finally the court supported the decision made by the Board.

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Could There Be Any Improvement on Facebook’s Trademark Application Strategy in China?

Why the Acuvue of Johnson & Johnson Encounters Trademark Dilusion?

The State Food and Drug Administration of China (SFDA) recently released the news on its website that the colorful plain contact lens will be put into administrative supervision over medical equipment (the “News”). Though the equipment is referred as the “colorful plain contact lens”, while it’s reported by media in the name of “Acuvue/Acuvue” (the “Acuvue”, means beautiful sight in Chinese). Afterwards, Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), the manufacturer of “Acuvue”, stated that the words are the exclusive trademark of it, and only the contact lens with cosmetic effect could be called as “Acuvue”.

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How to improve the success rate of trademark registration in China?

Highlight: Foreign companies should ask the Chinese trademark agency to take trademark retrieval and give advice of feasibility of the trademark keyword before applying the trademark.

The most frequently consulted question by foreign companies to us is that what measures could be taken when trademark application is refused in China.

    In accordance with our experiences, it is more difficult to get the trademark that has been refused approved, however, under most circumstances, the basic success rate for trademark application can be known through the prior trademark retrieval service. For the avoidance of any influence on company’s brand strategy from application failure, alternative names or together-applied backup names are suggested to those trademarks difficult to apply.

The rejection of trademark application may cause large losses and damages to enterprises’ brand strategy. Generally, the company tends to schedule the brand strategy, including brand positioning, advertisement and protection before unveiling the product. However, it may cost 1 to 1.5 years from application to registration or rejection due to administrative refusal, which may challenge the brand strategy of the company shall the company was unprepared.

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