Textile And Clothing Industry: Intellectual Property Rights In Collision

Not long ago, Google, the Internet giant, spent $12 billion 500 million to acquire Motorola, becoming the focus of public opinion for a while. Industry analysis, this is an important step in Google's mobile Internet era layout, but as Google's largest acquisition ever, among which Google is more interested in Motorola's 17 thousand patents.

In the textile and garment industry, registered trademarks, product design and patent technology are common contents of intellectual property. However, it is not optimistic that in October last year, the survey of intellectual property related issues conducted by the industry showed that more than 60% of garment enterprises were negatively treating intellectual property disputes. At the same time, the recognition of relevant laws is generally insufficient, and enterprises expect the government to play a greater role in the protection of intellectual property rights.

Although the importance of intellectual property rights in domestic enterprises still needs further improvement, it is worth affirming that in the past ten years, the understanding and understanding of intellectual property rights in enterprises has been deepened with various international and domestic disputes, and the government has been making efforts to strengthen the improvement of relevant laws and the enforcement of intellectual property rights.

Strengthening legislation and law enforcement

In 2008, China promulgated. Outline of the national intellectual property strategy, It is clear that China will be built into a country with higher level of intellectual property creation, utilization, protection and management by 2020. Since China's accession to the WTO, China has continuously strengthened the relevant laws on intellectual property rights, revised the trademark law in 2001, revised the patent law in 2008, and revised the copyright law in 2010.

With the continuous improvement of the legal system, the enforcement of government departments is also strengthening. It is not only a fight against counterfeiting, but also plays an important role in helping enterprises protect intellectual property rights.

In the early 2002, the Wuhan Intellectual Property Office launched a preferential policy for local clothing enterprises to apply for patents free of charge. It turned out that in 2001, the number of patent applications for clothing industry in Wuhan was 0. At that time, Wuhan clothing enterprises were in a vicious competition, and the phenomenon of plagiarism was very serious, and intellectual property rights were not protected properly. The practice of Wuhan intellectual property office plays a key role in reshaping the industry image and rebuilding healthy competition order.

Wang Linjie, a lawyer at the Ministry of legal affairs of the China Council for the promotion of international trade, believes that in recent years, governments at all levels have been carrying out law enforcement on intellectual property protection for a long time, which has brought good social and economic benefits. What is worth mentioning is the efforts made by the Nantong home textile industry in the protection of copyright, which has attracted the attention of the world intellectual property organization. In 2010, it published the "strengthening Copyright Protection Research Report on the impact of the development of China's Nantong textile industry".

For the basic practice and experience of copyright protection in Nantong's home textile market, Clark, assistant director general of the International Intellectual Property Office, believes that two aspects are most important: first, the support of the legal framework of the system; two, the strong support from the administrative organs at all levels, including management, law enforcement, transportation, warehousing, logistics, R & D, and services.

Judging from the success achieved by Nantong in the protection of home textile copyright, this is precisely the important result of the joint efforts of enterprises consciously establishing rules and strengthening the protection of the government.

Even in the border trade outside the WTO platform, the government intellectual property right The protection has never been relaxed. In March 11, 2011, Manchuria Customs seized 509 pieces of clothing suspected of infringing Adidas's intellectual property rights. This is a suspected intellectual property infringement case carried out by the Manchuria customs since the launch of the special action against intellectual property rights and counterfeiting and selling of counterfeit goods last year.

The law is more sound, the enforcement is stricter, and the protection of intellectual property rights is getting more and more attention. It is precisely because of the active advocacy of the state that the society and enterprises have popularized the awareness of respecting and protecting intellectual property rights.

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Disputes are more complicated.

In 2001, before the accession to the WTO, there was a lawsuit between Dalian Si Fan fashion company and the Dalian fashion design center of Dalian. Plaintiff Si Fan thought that the two women's cashmere coats sold by defendant Jin Xin violated their patent rights for design. And this case is regarded as the first case of Chinese clothing enterprises surrounding the appearance of patent.

After the trial of the intermediate people's Court of Dalian, the defendant "Jin Xin" immediately stopped the infringement and compensated the plaintiff for "economic losses" of over 8.5 yuan.

It seems that the clothing industry infringed on others' design behavior has not been cured very well, which seems to be a silent pain in the industry for many years. The head of a well-known clothing company in Hangzhou once pointed out that the reasons for repeated prohibition of intellectual property rights in the clothing industry are: "the clothing market is changing fast, the R & D investment is high, and the R & D time is long. This has led to many enterprises unwilling to devote their energies to research, develop and design new products, but habitually imitate and follow suit, which makes plagiarism very common."

Zhang Li, the brand director of Beijing's cheongsam limited, revealed that the company developed hundreds of styles every year, and the original design was plagiarized frequently. The patent application time is longer, which is difficult to match the fashion fast and popular characteristics. Therefore, no patent application for pattern design has been made. And Wang Linjie said, in fact, many enterprises do not understand that from the date of the birth of the design, the law automatically grants copyright protection, so once the original design is plagiarized, it can be identified as infringement of intellectual property rights.

In addition to design infringement, the adverse effects of trademark infringement are even more serious.

In the ten cases of intellectual property litigation in 2009 published by the Beijing Higher People's court, three cases were involved. Clothing enterprise Trademark infringement accounts for two cases.

Over the past ten years, the infringement of trademark rights has evolved more complicated, from the initial simple and direct embezzlement of well-known trademarks to the subsequent use of well-known trademarks in other industries, to the more concealed forms of infringement.

Wang Linjie believes that enterprises should have a forward-looking consideration in the registration of trademarks. In addition to registering in the industry, they should also register in other industries that are likely to be relevant, and register various names that are similar to trademarks. At the same time, Wang Linjie also suggested that enterprises should set up a counterfeiting working group for intellectual property rights, specifically for trademark fraud and rights protection.

Zhang Lijuan said that the trademark of Ge Qipao is also registered in clothing related shoes and accessories.

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Outside is still the worst hit area.

Internationally, the International Convention for the protection of intellectual property rights has been in use since nineteenth Century.

The Paris Convention on the protection of industrial property was signed in 1884. It is the Convention for the protection of trademarks and patents. The Berne Convention was enacted in 1886 and is the Convention for the protection of copyright. The Madrid Agreement on the international registration of trademarks entered into force in 1989 and is a treaty to regulate and regulate international trademark registration. The agreement on trade related aspects of intellectual property rights is a multilateral agreement under the jurisdiction of the world trade organization. It is the international treaty that has the greatest influence on intellectual property rights laws and systems.

In international trade, it is essential for enterprises to understand the above treaties. This ensures that garment enterprises can effectively avoid intellectual property disputes in international trade.

During an international home textile exhibition, a large and self designed textile enterprise in Zhejiang was accused of infringement, which puzzled the enterprises. Later, the survey found that the complaint company not only produced its own design products, but also processed the products according to the patterns provided by the customers. The problem is that the design pattern provided by the client infringes on the copyright of others.

In the exhibition, the intellectual property rights problem exposed by enterprises is not unusual. Take the 2006 International Textile Machinery Exhibition as an example, the exhibition Intellectual Property Office received 7 complaints, involving 10 patents, and 18 exhibitors. Among them, 5 overseas exhibitors complained, involving 8 patents and 8 exhibitors.

In addition to attending exhibitions, foreign intellectual property rights surveys should also be taken care of in normal import and export trade, among which the most famous one is the "337 survey". In 2003, the United States International Trade Commission launched 8 "337 surveys" on Chinese mainland enterprises, compared with 11 in 2004. Clothing, shoes and caps, software blockbusters, DVD, batteries and many other products have been involved in Sino US intellectual property disputes. After 2005, the Sino US intellectual property rights frictions were further escalated.

A typical case of Chinese and foreign clothing industry in intellectual property disputes occurred in the very famous Xiushui Street.

In 2009, in the second intermediate people's Court of Beijing, intellectual property rights agent LV introduced the relevant proof to Xiushui Street company, claiming that they found 30 merchants in the Xiushui Street market selling 5 counterfeit products of counterfeit products such as LV, CHANEL, BURBERRY, GUCCI and PRADA.

Such confrontation between the two sides occurred in 2005. At that time, the company introduced the second intermediate people's court in Beijing to prosecute the Xiushui Street market and 5 merchants selling fake goods. The court finally decided that the defendants should compensate five Brand Company for twenty thousand yuan.

Wang Linjie believes that foreign intellectual property rights agents can protect rights that may exist if they get permission from the right holders. As far as Xiushui Street incident is concerned, the management side of the market should bear the obligation of protecting intellectual property rights. When signing contracts with the merchants in residence, they explicitly prohibit the relevant behaviors, and regularly cooperate with the departments of industry and Commerce in carrying out fake checks.

Violations of intellectual property rights occur not only in some enterprises in China, but in foreign countries, the infringement on Chinese brands should be more vigilant in the industry, and they are "legal infringement".

According to the statistics of the State Administration for Industry and commerce, in recent years, 15% famous enterprises in China have been snatch famous trademarks abroad, and nearly 100 cases of domestic enterprises' trademark being registered abroad have been registered every year. "West Lake Longjing", "Biluochun" and "Tongrentang" and other famous trademarks have been snatch abroad. The direct result of this problem will affect Chinese enterprises going out of the country and losing intellectual property rights, and gradually becoming a threshold for Chinese enterprises to "go out".

Wang Linjie reminds us that once an enterprise's own brand is snatch abroad, it is equivalent to eating dumb. If you want to enter the market of this country, you must negotiate with the sprinter, and you may pay a high economic price. If the opponent is directly competing with each other, you will probably be restricted to enter the market, so this is very unfavorable for the internationalization of Chinese enterprises.

Wang Linjie believes that enterprises should recognize the regionality of intellectual property rights, and the patent and registered trademarks applied in China can not be protected within the international scope without the corresponding bilateral or multilateral regulations. Under the historical background of "going out" of Chinese clothing enterprises, enterprises should have a forward-looking look, and protect their intellectual property rights ahead of time in countries or regions that may become major overseas sales markets, so that they can get legal protection in international operation.