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In the News

Trademark infringement continues despite crackdow

By Zhou Wenting (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-07-29

BEIJING - Trademark infringement at home and abroad has continued unabated, officials of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce said after concluding the largest-ever national campaign of intellectual property protection.
"Adidas, Nike and Louis Vuitton are the biggest victims of trademark infringement among foreign brands in China," Fu Shuangjian, deputy director of the administration, told a conference on Thursday.
Industrial and commercial agencies nationwide have filed and investigated more than 6,000 cases that violate the rights of 11 foreign high-profile clothing and bag trademarks, including Adidas, Nike, Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Prada, in the campaign that ran from October to mid-June, Fu said.
The agency in Tianhe district of Guangzhou, Guangdong province, ferreted out a storeroom containing nearly 20,000 pieces of famous foreign leather goods with a value of nearly 100 million yuan ($16 million).
The agency in Jiangyin, Jiangsu province, cooperated with the police department and broke a case involving more than 20,000 products that infringed on 78 world-famous trademarks, such as Burberry, Prada and Hugo Boss, with a total value exceeding 50 million yuan.
Electronic gadgets fill another domain heavily bombarded with trademark infringement. Industrial and commercial agencies have filed more than 2,200 cases that violate the rights of seven well-known trademarks, including Nokia, Samsung, HP and Canon.
"It is typical unfair competition to put famous logos on fakes. We will continue to crack down on the proliferation of the phenomenon after the campaign," said Ning Wanglu, a senior fair-trade official with the administration.
Suspected unauthorized Apple stores were found in Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, and in Chongqing municipality this week. Officials said they are in contact with local watchdogs, who are investigating the violators.
Meanwhile, infringement and preregistration of Chinese trademarks overseas are also a serious problem, officials said.
"A total of 28 well-known Chinese trademarks, including Huawei, the world's second-largest telecom solution provider, suffered preregistration in Africa," said Xu Ruibiao, a senior official with the administration.
Xu said one of their priorities in recent years is to assert the rights of Chinese trademarks globally, and they have successfully avoided 52 names of Chinese businesses being preregistered as trademarks in Canada and the trademark of "Confucius Institute" being preregistered in Costa Rica.
Xu said the most important subject of trademark protection is the registrant, and they recommend international registration as a better protection for their brands to more Chinese enterprises.
The government will also provide legal advice for businesses, filling them with means to assert their rights in case of infringement, because many are not knowledgeable in this respect, Xu said.

Officials close 2 of 5 fake Apple stores

Updated: 2011-07-26 China Daily

KUNMING - Officials looking into the illegal sale of Apple gadgets say they are waiting for the electronics company to respond before they decide whether to close three more possibly unlicensed stores.
Two of the five shops found selling iPhones and iPads in Kunming, capital of Southwest China's Yunnan province, have already been closed by the local industry and commerce administration.
However, investigators say they need more details on Apple Inc's distribution patterns before they can determine whether the other three are illegal.
Authorities have written to the headquarters of Apple's China company and are waiting for answers to two questions, according to Liu, an official at the administration who did not give his full name.
Liu said the administration has asked Apple whether only authorized stores can sell its products and whether mimicking the design of its trademark minimalist shops is an infringement of intellectual property rights.
Liu said his office will act accordingly after receiving a response.
The fake Apple stores attracted worldwide media attention after they were exposed online by a blogger from the United States.
Shortly afterward, authorities launched a probe into the illegal sale of Apple products.
The investigation, after looking into about 300 shops in the city, found five unauthorized Apple stores, according to a report seen on the Kunming city government's website.
Two of the five stores without business licenses have been closed, while three are still operating.
Amy Bessette, a spokeswoman for Apple based in California, declined to comment on the fake stores when she was interviewed by China Daily.
Instead, she suggested consumers turn to a page on Apple's Chinese website, which lists authorized resellers.
A saleswoman at one of the three unauthorized Apple stores, who declined to reveal her name, said the shop owner is applying for authorization from the California-based IT giant and hopes to become licensed in the near future.
The shop has even seen an increase in business because of the wide media coverage it has received, she said.
However, Liu Yinliang, a legal expert at Peking University, said it was illegal for a reseller to use Apple's brand and logo without the company's approval under the Law Against Competition by Inappropriate Means.
China has four authorized Apple stores in Beijing and Shanghai, although the US electronics company has labeled China a "key market". In contrast, it has 236 stores in the United States.
Lehman, Lee & Xu is a top-tier Chinese law firm specializing in corporate, commercial, intellectual property, and labor and employment matters. For further information on any issue discussed in this edition of China IP In The News or for all other enquiries, please e-mail us at mail@lehmanlaw.com or visit our website at www.lehmanlaw.com.
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