Famous branding

Famous branding is a phenomenon of unfair competition. It mainly refers to: registering a famous trademark as your own company name in order to confuse the company name and brand name. Trying to mislead consumers into thinking that famous brands are produced by the company, thereby expanding sales and gaining profits.

Several ways to imitate famous brands

The first one: playing on the sidelines

To play on the sidelines is to imitate famous trademarks, causing consumers to mistake them for brands. Famous brands to buy. For word trademarks, add prefixes or suffixes to some famous brands, for example, add "Valentino" with the prefix to become ×× "Valentino", and add the suffix, "Valentino" ××. In fact, not many world brands have prefixes and suffixes, and even if they do, they are only a few that most people are familiar with.

For graphic trademarks, every detail is carefully planned, leaving consumers unable to distinguish between authenticity and authenticity. For example, does the "old man's head" have three wrinkles or two? Does the crocodile's mouth face left or right? How many petals does "Monttaggio" have? I'm afraid not many people know clearly.

Nowadays, people who play "edge ball" usually put on a legal cloak for themselves, that is, they register imitation trademarks. The registration time of graphic trademarks is fundamentally different from that of famous trademarks, but when used, the color is added It is very close. If it is a word trademark, register several at the same time, and when used together, it will form a complete famous trademark...

The second type is to register a famous trademark name as a trade name

This kind of "famous brand" is to register a famous trademark as one's own company name, confusing the company name and the brand name, causing consumers to mistakenly think that the famous brand is produced by this company. For example, the Chinese trademark of the famous brand "Woodpecker" was registered as "Jiujiang Woodpecker... Company", "Shenzhen Woodpecker... Company", "Shanghai Woodpecker... Company", etc. Then they promoted it with great fanfare, and boldly imitated the famous trademarks in the store decoration. When they were investigated and punished by the administrative agencies, they confidently said: "Isn't it okay for me to use my own company's name?" What's more clever is to play Registering a well-known trademark as your own trade name abroad or in Hong Kong makes it difficult for consumers to distinguish between genuine and fake products.

Trademark registration all over the country must come to Beijing. Everyone registers trademarks at the National Trademark Office. If they are identical or similar, the Trademark Office will not register them. The same is true if you use a famous company name to register as your trademark. If you cannot register, this is called infringement of other people's prior rights. But it is very easy to register a famous trademark as your company's trade name, because every county in the country can register a company. The information in these counties is not connected to the Internet, so you registered "A" in County A. County Woodpecker...Inc.", and in neighboring County B, you can also register to "County B Woodpecker...Inc."

In fact, the names of many famous brands and companies in the world are inconsistent.

The third type of "returnee shell school"

Through international registration of companies in Registering a company and applying for a trademark overseas makes consumers think that it is produced by a foreign company and is a foreign brand, but the company's products are still produced and sold domestically. Such brands all claim to have R&D institutions overseas. In fact, they are completely domestic production and domestic craftsmanship. The quality, craftsmanship, design, etc. of their products are disguised as a completely foreign company and foreign brand, but most of them are not as good as the quality they claim. is inconsistent.

This behavior does not infringe on other famous products, but only uses the mentality of Chinese people that foreign brands are better than domestic brands. Give the product a foreign name and put it in a Shanghai-returned shell, hoping to get good sales.

The fourth type is to "supervise the production" of international brands by oneself

Based on reports, the Guangzhou City Industrial and Commercial Department uncovered such a case of "famous brands". In a fashion store located on Huanshi West Road in Yuexiu District, a plaque that reads "Produced by French Valentino Clothing (Hong Kong) Industrial Development Co., Ltd." is openly displayed.

The products produced by oneself are labeled with a certain producer, which seems to give people a sense of quality assurance.

In order to close their relationship with well-known brands, some operators even personally "supervise the production" of international famous brands. The specific method is to first register a company in Hong Kong and other places with a name that is very similar to some international famous brands, and then mark the products produced by it as being supervised by this company. It gives consumers the impression that an internationally renowned brand company carries out quality control and quality assurance on these products.

Legal Analysis of Imitation of Famous Brands

The first type of imitation is a "side ball", but no matter how the "side ball" is played, there is only one core purpose, which is to try to imitate to make oneself look like the brand. If consumers misunderstand a well-known trademark, this behavior itself is unfair competition. The core of imitation is to imitate logos and packaging. Regarding this behavior, Article 21 of my country’s Anti-Unfair Competition Law clearly stipulates: “… operators use the unique names, packaging, and decoration of well-known commodities without authorization, or If the name, packaging, or decoration is similar to that of a well-known product, causing confusion with other people's well-known products and causing buyers to mistake them for the well-known products, the supervision and inspection department shall order them to stop the illegal behavior, confiscate the illegal gains, and may impose illegal penalties according to the circumstances. A fine of not less than one time but not more than three times the income earned;”

Those who use “edge ball” will apply for some trademarks that are similar to famous trademarks, and will soon get the acceptance notice, and they can use the acceptance notice , after being rejected, you can also file a reconsideration application for the rejection, so that you can "legally use" it for two or three years. Some trademarks can be registered by luck. However, there is always an unavoidable problem, which is to imitate the logo of a famous trademark. This alone constitutes unfair competition, and any trademark that is lucky enough to be registered will also be revoked. If a registered trademark is spliced ??to look like a famous trademark, it is actually an improper use of the registered trademark. The registered trademark will be revoked by the Trademark Office due to improper use.

The second method seems very clever on the surface, and even creates problems for the administrative agencies to investigate and deal with. In fact, many laws/regulations have relevant provisions for this kind of phenomenon. Article 13 of the "Provisions on the Recognition and Protection of Well-known Trademarks": "The party believes that others have registered its well-known trademark as a business name, which may deceive the public or cause misunderstanding to the public. , you can apply to the competent authority for enterprise name registration to cancel the registration of the enterprise name...

Article 4 of the "Opinions on Solving Certain Issues in Trademarks and Enterprise Names" of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce stipulates: "The words in the trademark If it is the same as or similar to the trade name in the enterprise name, causing others to confuse market entities and the source of their goods or services (including the possibility of confusion, the same below), thereby constituting unfair competition, it shall be stopped in accordance with the law. "Article 5 clearly states: "The confusion referred to in the previous article mainly includes:... (2) Registering words that are identical or similar to others' registered trademarks as trade names in the company name, causing the relevant public to distinguish between the trademark registrant and the owner of the company name. misrecognition or misunderstanding. ”

Any behavior that violates fair competition will be punished. There is no legal provision now, but there will definitely be in the future. This kind of circumvention of the law is also illegal according to the current legal provisions, and the consequence is that the name of the enterprise may be Cancellation, and will be subject to corresponding penalties because it constitutes unfair competition.

Some people have different opinions from the Guangzhou Municipal Administration of Industry and Commerce regarding the third and fourth methods. They believe that they do not violate existing laws. Regulations. The production supervision company is legally registered and exists. The law does not prohibit the company from supervising production, and they can completely pretend that the quality inspection personnel of the manufacturer are the supervision personnel of the production supervision unit. It is not even possible to say that they are deceiving consumers. This kind of behavior is not prohibited by law.

The harm of following famous brands

Zhejiang Crocodile Clothing Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zhejiang Crocodile) has applied for a registered trademark for the pinyin of the company name "ZJIEYU". , as the core theme of the "Zhejiang Crocodile" brand; the animal "Snapping Turtle" was chosen as the material to create a trademark with the text and graphics of "Turtle Crocodile", and the combination of the "Turtle Crocodile" graphic and the "ZJIEYU" text trademark was used as a " The distinctive mark of the Zhejiang Crocodile brand.

Through hard work, the "Zhejiang Crocodile" brand has become well-known to consumers in China and has formed a unique consumer group for the "Zhejiang Crocodile" series of products. In the Beijing market, the sales volume of "Zhejiang Crocodile" has exceeded that of "French Crocodile" and "Hong Kong Crocodile". Crocodile" and "Singapore Crocodile".

In May 2000, French Crocodile filed a lawsuit with the Beijing High Court, asking the court to determine that "Zhejiang Crocodile" infringed on its registered trademark rights, and to stop using the "Zhejiang Crocodile" brand and compensate for losses. At the end of 2002, French Crocodile, together with "Hong Kong Crocodile" and "Singapore Crocodile", filed an objection to the "Turtle Crocodile" graphic trademark that "Zhejiang Crocodile" applied to the National Trademark Office for registration and had been preliminarily approved and announced by the Trademark Office, and blocked it through the opposition procedure. Trademark registration for the "Zhejiang Crocodile" brand.

Adhering to famous brands can enable companies to make their first money quickly by riding on famous brands, but after all, it is not a long-term solution. If you also become a famous brand, you will have to suffer the consequences. Because there are legal conflicts with famous trademarks, it is easy to be pushed to the forefront of the anti-counterfeiting wave, leading to encirclement and suppression. It is also possible that your trademark will be deemed invalid for this reason, and the brand you have worked so hard to cultivate will be gone in an instant.

Statistics show that my country’s clothing industry has many firsts in the world. There are more than 100,000 Chinese clothing brands, but none of them are world-renowned. If China's garment industry does not speed up the cultivation of strong independent brands, it will face extremely severe tests in its survival space in both international and domestic markets.