The great role of trademarks in the market economy is to identify brands, so we find that only slightly mature startups have their own LOGO, but there are also legal risks behind trademarks. Do you know entrepreneurs? Case 1: Be cautious in determining the trademark. Company A is mainly engaged in imported goods from the United States. In order to reflect its business characteristics, they added the star-spangled element of the American flag when designing graphic trademarks and filed a trademark registration application with the Trademark Office. Subsequently, Company A began to use the trademark and carried out a lot of advertising promotion. Unexpectedly, one year later, the company received the Notice of Trademark Rejection from the Trademark Office, and the trademark they applied for failed to register. The company consulted a lawyer, and the lawyer informed that the trademark violated the relevant provisions of the Trademark Law, and it was difficult to pass the review. In the end, Company A can only accept the fact that the trademark can't be registered, and the promotion efforts made in the early stage and the established brand benefits are all wasted. Lawyer's suggestion: The Trademark Law specifically stipulates that it shall not be used as a trademark or registered as a trademark, such as China's national flag, national emblem, military flag, medal, etc., and also includes foreign names, national flags, national emblems, names and marks of intergovernmental international organizations, etc. Some signs that are deceptive, easy to cause misunderstanding, harmful to socialist morality or have other adverse effects cannot be used as trademarks. There are also some trademarks that cannot be registered because of lack of distinctiveness. In addition, the application for trademark registration cannot conflict with the legal rights previously obtained by others, such as prior similar trademarks, appearance patents, business names, copyrights and name rights, which may all become obstacles to trademark registration. Enterprises should have a certain understanding of these regulations, so they should consult professional lawyers and conduct all-round search when choosing and determining trademarks. In the early stage, many enterprises paid more attention to the conceptual design and marketing promotion of brands, ignoring the legal issues of trademarks, and thought that the trademark design should be handed over to the agency for application. It takes more than one year for a trademark to be formally registered. If a trademark cannot be registered because it violates the relevant provisions of the Trademark Law, the enterprise's investment in trademark promotion in the early stage will be lost in vain, and it is likely to lose a good development opportunity. Case 2: Be careful about the logo found in Taobao. Company B wanted to design a company logo, and found a trademark design shop on Taobao. The shop provided several design patterns for it, and Company B chose a pattern that they thought was good. Company B applied for registration of the pattern to the Trademark Office. A year later, they also received the Notice of Trademark Rejection on the grounds that it was similar to the previously registered trademark. They found that the previously registered trademark was exactly the same as the pattern they applied for. It turns out that Taobao's design shop stole designs from the Internet for buyers to choose from. Lawyer's suggestion: There are many logo design shops on Taobao, and the competition is fierce, which reduces the design cost of enterprises. This is a good thing, but enterprises should also pay attention to the risks. It is good to have a preliminary idea of the trademark logo, and then ask the design company to design on this basis to avoid using the ready-made works of the design company. At the same time, it is necessary to sign an entrusted design contract with the design company, in which the copyright ownership of the design scheme, the work can not infringe the copyright of others and the legal liability should be stipulated. Before the formal application, the logo should also be searched approximately to reduce the legal risk of trademark rejection. Case 3: Anti-leakage of trademark application Company C conceived a good word mark. In order to ensure successful registration, they consulted a trademark agency and asked them to inquire about the approximate situation of the trademark on their behalf, but later they chose another agency to apply for registration on their behalf because of the cost. Later, their trademarks were rejected because of the similarity of trademarks, and the previous similar trademarks were exactly the same as their trademarks, and the application date was only earlier than them. Company C only disclosed the trademark to this trademark agency before formally applying. They also learned that this agency is a company specializing in trademark registration, which specializes in registering hot trademarks in society. Soon after, the holder of the cited trademark sent a warning letter to company C, asking them to stop using the trademark, or they would bring a trademark infringement lawsuit to the court. Another solution is that company C buys the trademark at a high price. Lawyer's suggestion: We must do a good job of confidentiality in the stage of trademark conception, and we must entrust an honest and reliable trademark agency or law firm. In addition to trademark agencies, internal employees, partners, shareholders and competitors of enterprises may scramble for leaked trademarks. In particular, there are a large number of' registered trademark professionals', who pay special attention to the brand information of some enterprises. Once it is confirmed that the brand of the enterprise has not applied for a trademark, they will scramble and then negotiate with the enterprise. Some enterprises strictly abide by the principle of not publishing without application, and only publish trademarks after receiving the acceptance notice from the Trademark Office. This is a very good practice. Case 4: There may be no lower limit for a trademark agency. Company D wants to apply for a trademark, and finds several trademark agencies to make inquiries, and chooses an agency with a low trademark quotation through the website. Shortly after the trademark declaration, Company D received the Notice of Acceptance of Trademark Registration Application from the agency, and informed them that the trademark could be used now, and the official trademark registration certificate was issued two years later. Company D began to use the trademark, and waited for three years. The trademark registration certificate has not come down yet. I called the agency and found that the phone of the agency couldn't get through and the website disappeared. They quickly went to the Trademark Office to inquire about their trademarks, and were told that their trademark registration application had never been submitted at all, and the Notice of Acceptance of Trademark Registration Application in their hands was forged. Only then did they find out that they had been cheated and quickly applied for a registered trademark, but in the previous two years, similar trademarks had been applied before them, and everything was irreparable. Lawyer's suggestion: Many people can't tell the difference between the acceptance notice and the trademark registration certificate, and some unscrupulous agencies just use this situation to deceive and say the acceptance notice as a trademark registration certificate. The situation of forging the acceptance notice is even more hateful. They didn't apply at all. Liars take advantage of the cheap psychology of enterprises to deceive at low prices, which has also happened on Taobao recently. Thousands of dollars is small, which delays the development opportunities of enterprises. In order to prevent this from happening, enterprises should not only find reliable agents as mentioned above, but also learn to identify forged acceptance notices. The information of trademark application can be inquired on the website of the Trademark Office. If the acceptance notice is forged, it will definitely not be inquired online. Case 5: Double-spring trap of unscrupulous agency Company F is a small company. Last year, it entrusted a trademark agency to apply for a trademark, and this year it just got a trademark certificate. The boss of Company F received a phone call from other places, saying that the trademark of Company F was very interested and he wanted to buy it for 5, yuan. The boss of the company didn't expect his trademark to sell for so much money, and he didn't consider selling it because the trademark was in use. A few days later, the man called again and said that this trademark is very important to them, and they can buy it for 1 thousand yuan. If they don't sell it, they will rob all categories and sue F Company for infringement. Company F panicked. It happened that the original trademark agency called to ask about the company's trademark, and the boss quickly told the agency about it. The agency said that the value of your trademark is already very high, so it should be protected in all categories, and all forty-five categories should be applied as soon as possible, so that others can't rush to register. The boss thought that his trademark was so valuable that it would be more valuable if he registered more, so he decided to spend tens of thousands of yuan to apply for all kinds of registration. Lawyer's suggestion: this kind of fraud in the case is not rare, but very common, and many of my clients have encountered it. Let's just say that almost anyone who has applied for a trademark will receive a phone call from a liar, and many people will be cheated. In addition to all kinds of registered trademarks, there are also scams for copyright protection, allowing enterprises to register trademarks for copyright and then charge tens of thousands of yuan for copyright agency fees. Of course, the application for full-class registration is not a bad thing in some ways, and it can protect enterprises more. But in many cases, enterprises simply don't need such a wide range of protection. Under the encouragement and deception of swindlers, some individual industrial and commercial households even applied for full-class registration. For this kind of scandal, in addition to keeping an eye open for the swindlers, the government law enforcement departments need to intensify the crackdown and investigation. Those who violate the criminal law must be severely punished, and at the same time, the agencies involved in fraud should be strictly investigated, credit supervision should be strengthened, and their records of dishonesty should be published and included in the blacklist of agencies. Case 6: Manage the professional managers and clarify the trademark ownership. Company F is a large food enterprise, which is operated by a well-known professional manager, Mr. R. The company introduced functional food and used the W trademark on it. The company invested a huge amount of advertising expenses on this food, making this food a household name and occupying a large market share. After a period of time, Mr. R, a professional manager, left the company because of disagreement with the company's major shareholders. When the company handed over, it was discovered that the W trademark of the company's best-selling goods was actually registered under the name of Mr. R. Mr. R's explanation is that the brand was created and cultivated by him, and the W trademark is his intellectual property. If the company wants to continue to use it, it must pay him a huge trademark usage fee every year. In a rage, the company took Mr. R to court, but the evidence presented by Mr. R in court proved that the W trademark was applied before the establishment of Company D. After that, Company F had no choice but to pay Mr. R a fee to purchase the W trademark under the company name. Lawyer's suggestion: This is a real case, and its actual development and ending are far more complicated than the text (it is not appropriate to say it in detail, you know). In this case, we just want to explain that the owner of the enterprise must attach importance to the ownership of the brand, especially the trademark. It is a good phenomenon that enterprises employ professional managers more and more commonly. However, business owners can't' spill the beans' while delegating power. Trademark right is not as sensitive as equity and company property, but its potential economic benefits are very great. Business owners often don't pay enough attention to it, and it's too late to regret when something goes wrong. Therefore, enterprises must pay attention to the internal management of intellectual property rights, often sort out the intellectual property rights of enterprises, find out the problems and solve them in time. If in this case, the owner of the company found the registration of the brand trademark in time and corrected it, the following problems would not occur. Case 7: Beware of fraud in trademark transfer H company is eager to buy a registered trademark in order to meet the requirements of opening a shop in Tmall Mall. They found a trademark through an idle trademark trading website, which was very good and in line with their company's positioning. They found the trademark seller, and then the two sides traded it for 1, yuan and went through the trademark transfer procedures. H company successfully opened a shop in Tmall Mall with this trademark and began to promote it. But soon they received a lawyer's letter from the original trademark owner, asking them to stop the trademark on the grounds that it had never been transferred at all. They immediately contacted the trademark seller and found that the seller could not be contacted. It turns out that the seller is not a real trademark owner at all, but a professional trademark swindler who uses forged documents and procedures to defraud the trademark transfer. Eventually, the original trademark owner returned the trademark through legal means, and H Company suffered huge losses. Lawyer's suggestion: Due to Tmall Mall's requirements for registered trademarks, trademark transfer became popular overnight, which made the trademark hoarders breathe a sigh of relief, and some fraudsters also saw opportunities in it. In the past, there were some fraudulent acts in the process of trademark transfer, mainly the means taken by shareholders or stakeholders to compete for specific trademarks. The current situation is that scammers directly sell other people's trademarks. Some' smart' scammers even go to the Trademark Office to retrieve their trademarks according to the list after inquiring about the revocation or cancellation information of enterprises, and then forge official seal materials for transfer fraud. In order to avoid this kind of trademark transfer fraud, entrepreneurs must do their homework before the transfer. For optimistic trademarks, we should focus on the real situation of their rights. For example, search the enterprise credit status of the trademark seller on the enterprise credit website of the industrial and commercial bureau, and carefully check the original price of the trademark certificate instead of a copy or scanned copy. Also pay attention to the origin of trademarks, and be more careful about trademarks on some irregular trademark trading websites. Case 8: The brand joining scam is heavy. Xiao Yi started a restaurant, but it never caught fire. He thought of brand joining. He found a fast food chain with a very foreign name on the Internet to join. After several telephone contacts and field visits to the headquarters, he decided to join this chain brand. They signed a brand joining agreement, and Xiao I paid tens of thousands of brand joining fees. The fast food restaurant opened for several months, but business was fine. Suddenly, industrial and commercial law enforcement officers came to the door and told Xiao I that she had infringed the trademark right of another fast food chain, and immediately stopped using the trademark and accepted the punishment. Xiao I showed the law enforcement officers the brand joining agreement he signed, and the law enforcement officers told him that the brand trademark in this agreement was imitated by a fast food brand, and there was no registration at all, only a Notice of Acceptance of Trademark Registration Application. Lawyer's suggestion: the notice of trademark acceptance is the acceptance certificate issued by the Trademark Office to the trademark applicant after the application for trademark registration is submitted, which is not the same as the trademark registration certificate at all. It is very common to replace (or impersonate) a trademark registration certificate with a trademark acceptance notice in brand joining fraud. Brand owners have great trademarks, which may not be registered at all. They don't care whether they can register at all. As long as they get the acceptance notice, they can start licensing. Although the law does not prohibit the license of the trademark in the application, that is, unregistered trademarks can be licensed to others to use and collect the license fee, the rights of unregistered trademarks are in an uncertain state. On the one hand, they may be rejected in the first instance, on the other hand, they may constitute infringement on other trademark owners. In order to prevent being cheated in the process of brand joining, it is suggested that it is a hard condition for the brand to obtain the trademark registration certificate when investigating the brand joining project, otherwise try not to take risks, and at the same time, we should examine the real strength of the brand, don't listen to the bluffing of the brand, and besides looking at the flagship store designated by them, we should also conduct on-the-spot investigation on the operation of other franchisees. Case 9: Brand legal risk in company acquisition G company wants to acquire Q company in a province in order to expand its business. Q company specializes in a girl accessories brand, which has hundreds of specialty stores all over the country. After G Company bought most of the shares of Q Company at a high price, it started the national brand promotion and invited an idol-level female singer in Taiwan Province as the image spokesperson. Soon Company G received a summons from the court, and they were sued by a clothing company in other provinces on the grounds of trademark infringement. At this time, Company G asked a lawyer to search the trademark status of Company Q, and found that all the trademark registration applications of the company's operating brands had been rejected and invalid by the Trademark Office, and the previous registered trademarks belonged to this clothing company in other provinces. In this case, G Company and its affiliated companies have been convicted of trademark infringement in the first instance and compensated the other party for losses of 3 million yuan. The second instance is in progress. Lawyer's suggestion: There are many disputes about trademark rights in company acquisition and M&A, generally because the real ownership of trademark rights was not inspected before M&A, and the company's trademark was actually registered under the name of a third party, and the third party was an independent enterprise legal person, which caused later disputes. There is a difference between this case and the above situation, that is, the acquirer did not seriously examine the registration status of the main trademark of the acquired party. In fact, at the time of acquisition, the main trademark of the acquired company was still in the state of unregistered application, but in