China is always considered by foreign companies as a hard place to protect one’s own interest regarding intellectual property protection. Reasons include too many counterfeits, uncertainty of judgement of courts, low efficiency of government administration, and so on. Even if one won,
compensation for infringement is too low, which is
not even worth the time and money to start an lawsuit. Now, everything will be
changed, for the enforcement of law, especially related to the trademark laws
in China is strongly enhanced. There is a recent trademark case which indicates
the trends regarding to the Chinese trademark protection.
360 Company sues two finance companies
infringe its’ trademark right and claims for 30 million Yuan as compensation amount.
“30 million”, which will be the most maximum amount of compensation for
trademark infringement in China, which indicates the Internet companies in China,
raise their awareness for their IP right protection.
Until today, many companies in China still consider that copying
others famous brands is one of the best way to promote their business, so they
become brand copycat and they using the famous brands to make some profit.
Unfortunately, they will suffer lawsuit by those famous brands later. Maybe
there will be large sum of money to pay because of knockoff.
With
the enhancement of trademark protection as well as the awareness of brand
protection in China, it will become harder and harder for those copycats to do
business in China. If one want to do business in China, it is important to
register his own trademark first in China, because If you do not have your trademark
registered, others may apply your trademark, then you may be sued by other
companies because of trademark infringement and pay a huge sum of compensation.
The best way to avoid infringing and being infringed is to have your own
trademark.
