Everything China comes in waves and China trademark “theft” is no different. When we first started this blog back in 2006, we would get a call just about every week from someone wanting to sue a Chinese company blocking the company’s product from leaving China. We hated those calls because most of the time our
Our China trademark lawyers are often asked about the difference between the Nice Classification system for trademarks and China’s trademark subclass system. They are related, but quite different. The Nice Classification system is an international classification of goods and services that separates all possible goods and services into 45 classes: 34 classes for goods and
China does a lousy job policing bad-faith trademark registrations and that makes trademark squatting a profitable and low-risk activity in China. Those unfamiliar with Chinese trademark practice might think the problem is China’s trademark law. Not so. China’s Trademark Law has a number of provisions that could easily be invoked to combat trademark squatting, including
Forming a WFOE in China and then operating that business in China is difficult and expensive. See e.g., Forming a China WFOE: Ten Things To Consider and See also Doing Business in China Without a WFOE: Will the Defendant Please Rise on why having a WFOE is a must if you will be doing business
I did an interview the other day with GlobalAutoIndustry.com, on China IP Challenges for Automotive Suppliers, dealing mostly with automotive high-tech, which in most respects is no different from high tech generally. The below is a transcript of that interview. For anyone who has been living in a cave, the auto industry has changed, is
Your brand name and your product name and your logo are likely some of your company’s most valuable assets. Most companies realize this. Yet most companies do not realize how they put these things at risk by exploring doing business with China without FIRST applying for a China trademark. And in the past year or
Pre-application trademark searches and post-application notices from the China Trademark Office (CTMO) are increasingly revealing conflicts with existing trademark registrations and pending trademark applications. Given the vast number of trademarks being filed in China, this comes as no surprise. But a cited conflict, whether in a search or from the CTMO examiner, isn’t necessarily the
Smart Chinese manufacturers know that with their costs rising, they need to be able to distinguish themselves from their peers. One of the ways they are choosing to do this (even more frequently than in the past) is by copying and selling products they are making for their foreign customers. See Your China Factory as
American and European companies constantly come to my law firm’s China lawyers seeking to “shore up” their China IP protections. These are mostly companies that have been doing business in or with China for months or years and have now decided they are doing well enough in China to start paying to protect what they
Spring is coming to an end, but it’s not too late to conduct a little spring cleaning. First on the list: get your IP in order and register your trademarks in China. The following are 8 reasons to do so. 1. Because you are having branded goods manufactured in China, and you don’t want them
