The Five Most Basic Rules for Doing Business in a Foreign Country
The Five keys to succeeding in a foreign country.
China Trademarks: Counterfeit Goods and Parallel Imports
Our international IP lawyers do a lot of work for clients seeking to remove listings of counterfeit goods from Chinese e-commerce sites. Most of these listings are for obviously, sometimes extravagantly counterfeit merchandise, offered in vast quantities at far-below retail prices, with pictures either lifted from the real manufacturer’s website or showing products of dubious quality,
Make China Trademarks a Priority
I am not a big fan of filing Madrid Protocol applications for China. In certain situations, they can work well, but when they don’t work (which is fairly often) the trademark registration process takes longer and costs more than just filing a national application. See China Trademarks. Register Them In China Not Madrid. Filing a
China Trademarks: Register in More Classes, Take Down More Counterfeit Goods
When registering your trademark in China, it is important you choose your China trademark classes wisely and not choose to register in too many or in too few China trademark classes.
China Trademarks: When (and How) to Prove Use of a Mark in Commerce
China does not require proof of use to register or renew a trademark, but that does not make use irrelevant. Once a registration becomes vulnerable to non-use cancellation—or you need to enforce it—the quality of your evidence can determine whether the trademark is worth much at all.
China Trademarks and Your Chinese Distributor
Your China distribution contract should contain provisions that protect your brand name in China.
China Trade Dress and Unfair Competition Law
Close your eyes, and imagine that when you open them you have been magically transported to another country and you are inside a McDonald's. How do you know you're in a McDonald's? Surely you would know without having to see the name McDonald's or the famous Golden Arches logo. Would you even know that you
Trademark Squatting: A Dying "Trade"?
I attended an excellent IPWatchdog webinar this past week on trademark squatting, presented by Ai-Leen Lim of AWA Asia. You should watch the whole thing, but here are some thoughts and takeaways. Trademark squatting is one of the biggest problems when it comes to intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in China. Basically, squatting occurs when
