How to Settle Trademark and Trade Name Conflict in China

By Albert Chen

For the prior approval on the company name by the administration of industry and commerce as well as the preliminary examination by the trademark authority in China, no material checks on any conflict against first rights would be conducted. And that has resulted in the numerous conflicts between the trade name and trademark. In today’s post, you could see our opinions on the settlement of the conflict.

I. The administrative way

It is feasible to settle the trademark and trade name conflict through administrative way in China. By Opinions on Several Issues concerning the Settlement on the Conflict between Trademark and Trade Name (the “Opinions”) issued by the SAIC (the State Administration of Industry and Commerce), the conflict occurred within a province shall be settled as in charge of the provincial administration of industry and commerce, and those involves different provinces, shall be settled by SAIC.

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Analysis on Common Legal Risk of Chinese Company’s Ads

By You Yunting

The competition in Chinese market is so fierce that the company would strive to make their ads be more outstanding, yet that could also bring them the risks of administrative punishment. In today’s essay, you will see our analysis on the common risk for corporate propaganda.

I. No fulfilling to the promise in propaganda

The most typical case shall be the ads from Beijing Hyundai (note: the link is in Chinese), the joint venture of Hyundai in China. As claimed in the its ads, the chief of the company promised not to reduce the sales price of its vehicle in the coming 2 years, which soon be overthrown by its price adjustment within 120 days after that with the pressure from market competition. On that, we saw the consumer filing a group lawsuit against its break-in of promise. Despite as investigated by the company that, the words of the chief is not quit the same as claimed in the media report, and Hyundai was therefore judged of no liability, the Korean brand faced a devaluing of social reputation in China. In our opinions, the losses of intangible asset of the car maker are much more than the claimed compensation. And that shall mainly lie with the over promise by the company.

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Data on IPR Development in China, 2011

In recent, the News Office of the State Council held a news conference (note: the link is in Chinese), releasing the data on China IPR development in 2011, and the details are as follows:

Under the unified deployment of special acts by the State Council in combating the IPR infringement and the production and selling of the fake and substandard products, the filed cases in the administration of each level are 155, 900 with the involved amount of CNY 3.43 billion, 1, 702 cases were transferred to judicial organs and 9, 135 shelters were shut down.

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