Ten Years' Awkward Journey Of Chinese Enterprises And "Shanzhai" Trademarks

Knowledge in China

Recently, a marathon incident that lasted for ten years, which is called the history of Chinese children's wear trademark registration, has attracted the attention of the industry.

As a well-known brand of children's clothing industry in China, Annil (An Naier) children's wear has proved its existence value with 10 years' efforts, and has come out of the shadow of "Shanzhai".

These 10 years are also the 10 years of self cognition and self-development of Chinese enterprises at the intellectual property level.

Trademark awareness is weak, hidden danger for being "Shanzhai"

"At the very beginning, we did not have much ambition in establishing the company. It was not enough confidence, no long-term plan, let alone trademark protection.

Although a trademark was registered at that time only two thousand or three thousand yuan, the entire category of registration will not cost much, but because there is no trademark awareness, registration in trademark category is not considered comprehensive, and is plagiarized, imitated and run by other brands to make up for it, the cost will be very high.

Cao Zhang, general manager of the company, said in an interview that he hoped that more Chinese enterprises should not blindly pursue their development, weigh the pros and cons, and attach importance to the protection of intellectual property rights.

As we all know, trademark is the core of the brand, and also an important part of the intangible assets. It can give enterprises a sustained profit over a long period of time, so some economists will refer to the trademark as a "mobile cash machine".

With the rapid development of China's economy, China's own brands are also rising rapidly. However, the weak awareness of intellectual property protection has enabled some foreign enterprises to take advantage of it. The phenomenon of Chinese brands being registered overseas or the registration of Chinese enterprises' trademarks are being obstructed by overseas companies.

The seemingly simple trademark war has become the most outpost of trade game between China and foreign countries.

Cao said, "the brand awareness of Chinese enterprises is not more than 20 years. Many large enterprises have also suffered the loss of trademark registration. In the 03 year, because of the hindered overseas registration, Lenovo had to abandon the" legend "value of 20 billion yuan, and replaced it as" Lenovo ".

Foreign enterprises are very experienced, they are covered with intellectual property protection clothing, then the development will come to an end, and they are also very good at using intellectual property "big stick" to take the opportunity to suppress competitors, especially the lack of intellectual property protection awareness of Chinese enterprises.

Annil (An Naier) children's clothing is currently focused on the domestic market, and now the impact is not big. There are many problems encountered by big brands without Lenovo, but we also feel the pressure. An Naier's English "Annil" is similar to that of a children's clothing brand in the United States. Therefore, our trademarks in British and American homes may have to be changed, which is bound to have an impact on our future development plan.

Indeed, when China's economy and the international market are getting closer, entrepreneurs' intellectual property rights consciousness should not be divorced.

According to the data of the Trademark Bureau of the State Administration for Industry and commerce, in 2003, the total number of Chinese enterprises applying for international registration in other countries' trademark offices did not exceed 3000, while the number of trademarks registered by foreign enterprises in China was tens of thousands.

In 2004, 46% of the 500 most valuable brands in China published by the world brand laboratory were not registered in the United States, 50% were not registered in Australia, 54% were not registered in Canada, and the unregistered rate in the EU was as high as 76%.

Because Chinese enterprises are not familiar with the rules of international trade game, they give their competitors an opportunity.

For this reason, experts from the Ministry of Commerce of China have issued warnings to domestic enterprises to remind them to take active measures, otherwise the investment abroad will be affected.

"Being"

In the past ten years, with the continuous maturity and development of Chinese enterprises, and facing the trend of global economic integration, they began to strengthen the protection and effective contention of intellectual property rights.

In the game of the international market, Chinese brands began to wake up and argue against themselves under the heavy resistance of being "Shanzhai".

From Annil (

In addition, the Daimler Benz Corp, which has the "first case of international victory", sued the trademark infringement lawsuit case of the 31 group of Chinese construction machinery enterprises. Finally, after the verdict published by the high court of London, the decision was announced, Chinese enterprises were won; Hisense was successful in the dispute with SIEMENS; Chery was reconciled with the general intellectual property dispute; Sheng Fang won the lawsuit against Johnson for the acquisition of the trademark.

More and more Chinese enterprises, in the face of disputes over international intellectual property rights, dare to argue with each other and dare to use legal weapons to defend their rights. This shows us the hope that Chinese enterprises will become stronger and more internationalized.

Strengthen self protection and jump out of the embarrassment of "Shanzhai" {page_break}

Lu Yongxiang, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, once said, "the phenomenon of infringement on intellectual property rights still exists in large numbers. Intellectual property litigation is difficult and the cost of safeguarding rights is high, which has dampened the initiative of enterprises in independent innovation and the use of intellectual property rights system to safeguard their legitimate interests."

At present, there are 469 state-level innovative pilot enterprises and more than 3000 local innovative pilot enterprises, such as Ann, Sany and other enterprises that have been or are being tested by intellectual property disputes such as trademarks.

Without dispute, it will become a "Shanzhai". Even the famous trademarks such as "Wuliangye", "Du Kang" and "Yi De Ge" can not escape from bad luck. The rush of overseas enterprises means that the national brands will be on the road of international development, and will become a "weak potential group" that is "Shanzhai". They will only win some sympathy. Contention means that they should take the protracted war spirit of "Xu do not give up" and make every effort to clear the way for the future long-term planning, and be proud of it, just like an enterprise such as Ann, Sany and so on, with the gold lettered signboard protected by law.

The choice between competition and indisputable is the choice of life and death for enterprises. Cao Zhang, general manager of the company, hit the nail on the head. "Trademark is the Amulet of enterprises".

The international economic competition in the twenty-first Century is largely the competition of intellectual property rights and the competition of intangible assets. From a certain level, a large number of scramble or compete with international enterprises for trademark rights shows that the competitiveness of Chinese enterprises in the international market has been continuously improved, which has attracted the attention of foreign companies, but what is more obvious is the problems existing in the protection of intellectual property rights, capital investment and intellectual property management and formulation strategy, which is known as "trademark shortsightedness" in Chinese enterprises.

Facing the escalation of international competition, domestic enterprises urgently need to raise brand awareness, implement trademark strategy, strengthen the overseas registration of trademarks, and make the international registration of trademarks become an important part of the whole brand strategy of enterprises, and create conditions for the products to go abroad and enterprises to go global.

Whether it is a well-known trademark enterprise or a temporarily unknown enterprise, we must strengthen the concept of brand safety, establish a sense of trademark first awareness, and conduct defensive registration in the export market.

Now, Cao's biggest wish is to develop the company into a century old brand worthy of consumer trust.

He said, "my greatest expectation in my lifetime is that when I am 50 years old, when I am more than 70 years old, I can give it to my brand for my birthday."

We also hope that more Chinese enterprises can enhance the awareness of trademark protection and enhance their soft power, so that more and more enterprises can do more and go further. I believe that in the near future, Chinese enterprises can gradually get rid of the shadow of "Shanzhai" and get the due respect in the international arena.