Why Shanghai Court Enforces Trademark’s Diligence Obligation on Original Equipment Manufacture?

(By You Yunting) Original Equipment Manufacture (the“OEM”) refers to a commercial model where the Principal person is responsible for the brand, research and design, and marketing, meanwhile, the manufacturer is responsible for production. As a big manufacturing country, OEM is an important way for our manufactured products to participate in international competition. Under China’s Laws, however, it is unclear whether OEM constitutes as a trademark infringement, and local courts have handed out different decisions for this problem. According to the author’s information, Fujian higher court, Zhejiang higher court and Shanghai higher court held that OEM manufacturers does not involve trademark infringement, but Guangdong higher court decided that the OEM manufacturers shall take responsibility for trademark infringement in many cases. The Supreme Court has not yet expressed its opinion towards this problem.

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China Supreme Court Issued A New Typical Trademark Infringement Case of OEM

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(By You Yunting) As a big manufacturing country, China deals with a lot of products categorized as original equipment manufacturing (the “OEM”). With regard to whether OEM constitutes trademark infringement, where local courts had handed out different decisions and infringing standards for this problem, the Supreme People’s Court has not yet expressed a clear standard for determining. Recently, China’s Supreme People’s Court has published the 2012 Top 50 typical trademark cases, and, among them, there is a case concerning OEM trademark infringement, where the manufacturer of an OEM won an infringement claim against it by the trademark holder. From the SPC’s decision in this case, we find rather clear evidence of the court’s attitude toward this particular issue.

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