A well-known trademark refers to a trademark that is widely known to the relevant public and enjoys a high reputation in China. At present, many domestic enterprises are only looking for the State Trademark Office to identify well-known trademarks, but savvy private enterprise bosses in Quanzhou, Fujian Province have realized that it is quick and convenient to go to court to identify well-known trademarks.
since last year, four enterprises in Quanzhou have obtained the recognition of well-known trademarks through judicial channels in just one year. (According to China Youth Daily on February 17, 25)
In fact, there are three ways to identify well-known trademarks: the State Trademark Office, the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board and the people's court. Among them, the judicial determination of the people's court is mainly based on the Trademark Law and the Supreme People's Court's Interpretation of Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Trademark Civil Disputes and Interpretation of Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Computer Network Domain Name Civil Disputes. The difference is that the competent department's determination is active, while the judicial determination needs to be requested by the parties. No matter which method is used, the effect is exactly the same.
for enterprises, it is somewhat passive and time-consuming for the competent authorities to determine whether a well-known trademark is well-known. However, taking the road of judicial determination, the initiative is often in their own hands, so they go to court to ask the court to rule that they own a well-known trademark. For enterprises, that is understandable, but from the trend of Quanzhou enterprises lining up to go to court, I still see some hidden concerns about bypassing the competent authorities to obtain well-known trademarks.
first of all, the procedure of court determination may be relatively simple. Well-known trademark is the highest recognition of a brand in China at present, with high gold content. The active recognition procedure of the competent authorities is more complicated, and more consideration will be given to the awareness of the trademark in the public, its development and growth history, its advertising sales and other factors. Therefore, well-known trademarks recognized by the competent authorities are often developed and matured step by step by local famous brands, provincial and municipal famous brands and national famous brands, with a solid foundation and worthy of the name. Moreover, the competent authorities here are the State Trademark Administration and the State Trademark Review and Adjudication Board, which are high-level and professional. However, judicial determination can be ruled by courts everywhere, and its standards are inevitably different, so its possible omissions are inevitable.
Secondly, the court found that it may bring more local protection. Most enterprises choose the local court, and the influence of enterprises that can submit well-known trademarks to the local court should be beyond doubt. Considering the award of a well-known trademark, it means a lot of benefits such as increasing local popularity, improving investment environment and increasing employment opportunities for residents. In fact, well-known trademarks are always a rare and scarce resource in modern China, and there is still a blank in many areas of China. In this way, we can even imagine that all aspects of telephone calls, comments and instructions will come to the court, and it is difficult for the court to be unaffected by it.
thirdly, in order to obtain well-known trademarks, enterprises may take advantage of the loopholes in the law and "set up a bureau" to sue themselves. For example, an enterprise registers a domain name with its own trademark name on the Internet, and then goes to the court to ask for the recognition of its well-known trademark. There are precedents in foreign countries, and domestic administrative identification procedures also provide this possibility.
The existence of these three concerns tells us that the identification of well-known trademarks cannot bypass the competent authorities, and this shortcut cannot be copied. When trying such cases, the court must inform the State Trademark Office and other competent departments before ruling that a trademark is a well-known trademark, consult their opinions in many ways, and obtain as comprehensive materials as possible. Or, the Supreme People's Court, together with the trademark administration department, will re-issue a new judicial interpretation with stronger operability and smaller error, so as to avoid the appearance of well-known trademarks with "water injection" and the people will eventually deny your account.