China trademark registration

China Trademarks: When (and How) to Prove Use of a Mark in Commerce

Unlike the United States, you do not need to prove “use” for a China trademark application to proceed to registration, and once a trademark is registered you do not have to prove you are still using trademark to be able to maintain or renew the registration for that trademark. Foreign companies have come to realize

China Trade Dress Law

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

China Trademark theft

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

International IP lawyer

Must I Register My Company Name as a Trademark in China?

No two China trademark strategies are the same, but one thing is pretty much a constant: You should register the company’s original English name. Before we go on, a clarification: I use “English name” as shorthand, but these names are often in other languages, or simply be a random collection of Latin letters. Names in

China cease and desist

Cease and Desist Letters to Stop International Counterfeiting

Hardly a week goes by without a company contacting one of our international IP lawyers wanting to retain us to “stop the counterfeits” of their products online and offline. Far too often these people believe one of our IP lawyers can within 24 hours send out a “template” cease and desist letter and within another 24