Entertainment Legal News

Protecting Well-Known Trademarks

The country's trademark watchdog has stepped up its efforts to improve the administration of trademarks, protecting their exclusive rights of use and maintaining the reputation of well-known brands. The State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) and its local branches conducted a nationwide campaign from mid-July to September, targeting trademark violators. The campaign has cracked down on more than 7,770 trademark violations and shut down around 1,150 factories and workshops making fake products. Special efforts have been made in seven areas where large amounts of counterfeited products are sold - Beijing and Shanghai municipalities, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong, Guangdong and Fujian provinces. Industrial and commercial administrations have harshly dealt with infringements involving products such as foodstuffs, drugs and agricultural materials that are closely related to public safety and health. Law enforcement officers have seized a number of counterfeit products related to domestic famous brands including Great Wall, Wuliangye, Tsingtao, Yili and Jianlibao. Apart from fake domestic brand-name products, a number of counterfeits of foreign famous brands including Nike, Boss, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Adidas, Samsung, Honda, Bosch, Polo, Sony, Burberry, Lancome, Playboy and Panasonic were also seized. For example, the Beijing Industrial and Commercial Bureau has taken steps to ensure trademark protection at Xiushui Street (Silk Alley), Yaxiu and Hongqiao, some of the shopping areas in Beijing that are popular with foreigners.

The Beijing authorities have suspended 40 stands in the Hongqiao Market which sold fakes with famous foreign trademarks. Any shops or stands that sell Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Fendi, Chanel, Burberry and another 20 foreign trademarks will be regarded as trademark violators and seriously punished. A hotline - 12315 - has opened to the public to report trademark violations. According to statistics from the SAIC, local authorities checked more than 80,000 shops and stands in more than 27,660 markets across the country by mid-September. Officials have discovered 1,493 foreign-related trademark violation cases and seized more than 2 million counterfeit products. Officials have also confiscated around 6.5 million fake foreign trademark labels which are ready for use on counterfeit products and 10,000 items of equipments to make fake trademark labels. Since the country joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) three years ago, China has revised its trademark laws and regulations to bring them more in line with WTO rules and to provide companies with a better business environment with regard to intellectual property protection. China employs a centralized trademark registration system. The Trademark Office within the State Administration for Industry and Commerce is responsible for the registration and overall administration of trademarks.

According to China's Regulation for Evaluating and Managing Famous Trademarks, famous trademarks refer to those registered trademarks that are well-known to certain groups of people and have a higher fame on markets and, therefore can enjoy both administrative and judicial protection in China. In China, SAIC is responsible for evaluating famous trademarks. Holders of famous domestic and foreign brands can apply to SAIC for protection. Brand holders could also appeal to court for recognition of their famous status. Corporation names, however, are regarded as a seperate intellectual property, and are approved by corporation registration offices under SAIC. Currently, the databases of all these stations are not linked nationally, which makes it hard for registration officials to spot trademark infringements when dealing with an application for corporation registration.

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	Did You Know?
	The title of Option is a defined factor When a creative entity, such as producer, artist, or studio, discovers a property and evaluates the rights status, they will, in most cases, attempt to negotiate an 'option' for the rights. An option is the right to acquire ownership of an intellectual property for a pre-determined amount of time. Size of the option payment often determines length of the agreement as well as how many forms of the rights will be included in the deal. While most option payments are subject to negotiation, script deals often work out to an even percentage of the purchase price.