What is a trademark? According to Chinese law, a trademark is any visible sign affixed to goods or packaging that can distinguish one's own products from those of others. This means that the main function of a trademark is to distinguish products from different manufacturers.
According to statistics from the Trademark Office, in 2012, 1.648 million trademark registration applications were accepted, a year-on-year increase of 16.3%, ranking first in the world for 11 consecutive years; 1.227 million trademark registration applications were reviewed, a year-on-year increase of 1.8%; 73,000 objection cases were adjudicated, a year-on-year increase of 28.7%; 52,500 trademark review cases were heard, a year-on-year increase of 50%. The cumulative number of trademark applications in our country has exceeded the 10 million mark, reaching 11.36 million, the cumulative number of registrations is 7.656 million, and the number of valid registered trademarks is 6.4 million, continuing to maintain the world's top ranking.
1. The Importance of Trademarks to Enterprises
‘It’s easy to get, but hard to find’. The production of a trademark requires a high cost. To create high-quality products, enterprises need to invest a lot of manpower, material resources, and financial resources to produce high-quality, low-price, and marketable products. They also need to spend a lot of money to advertise products and brands. Trademarks can make an enterprise quickly known to the society, promote the production and operation of the enterprise, and are of great significance to the long-term development of the enterprise.
Trademark is not only a passport for the enterprise, but also an intangible asset of the enterprise. Maxwell, President of Marlboro Group, has a penetrating discussion on the value of trademark: "It is the great asset of the enterprise. A brand is like a savings account. When you continue to accumulate its value with products, you can enjoy the interest. ’
At present, the top ten brands in the world are all worth more than 10 billion U.S. dollars, and the world’s top brand ‘Coca-Cola’ is worth as much as 100 billion U.S. dollars. Some people say that even if the Coca-Cola Company is destroyed by fire overnight, it can still be rebuilt with the brand 'Coca-Cola'.
The importance of trademarks in business operations is self-evident. Without a trademark, a company will be unable to be known, let alone become famous, just like a person without a name. But the difference between trademarks and people's names is that there can be thousands of people named "Zhang San" across the country, but they cannot have two registered trademarks called "Li Si" on the same product at the same time. Because some enterprises in our country did not have strong awareness of trademark protection in the past, some enterprises and individuals took advantage of the omissions of previous users and the loopholes in legal provisions to take the lead in registering and occupying the goodwill of others' existing trademarks for free. Internationally, many trademarks of Chinese companies have been registered. For example, 'Tongrentang' has been registered in Japan, 'Wuliangye' has been registered in South Korea, 'Konka' has been registered in the United States, and 'Hisence' has been registered in Germany. . Until now, when Chinese companies expand their markets abroad, about 15% of them still encounter trademarks that have been preemptively registered, putting these companies at a disadvantage in competition.
Therefore, although a trademark is small, it is indeed related to the development of the enterprise and should attract the great attention of the enterprise.
2. Trademark protection plan
1. Register the trademark in all categories, that is, register the trademark in all categories of goods and services, at least covering as many relevant categories as possible category. Register categories related to the company's products, or even all categories of goods and services listed in the entire classification table, at the same time.
The advantages of doing so are: first, it allows the company to have a ready-made trademark to use for the products it may develop or plan to produce in the future. Secondly, prevent others from preemptively registering. The more well-known a company is, the more likely it is that its trademark will be infringed or registered. After a company's trademarks are registered by others, the quality of products using these trademarks may not be well guaranteed. If serious quality problems occur, the brand's image will be deteriorated, and the company's interests and reputation will be damaged. .
2. Set up a special department or entrust a professional organization to conduct year-round trademark monitoring. Once the same or similar trademark is found, relevant measures will be taken to avoid unnecessary losses due to trademark infringement.
3. Register an international trademark, register a trademark elsewhere as soon as possible, and obtain trademark protection rights.
At present, domestic Zhibajie intellectual property brands are being registered in Hong Kong, Macau and other places. Therefore, paying attention to international registration in a timely manner can protect the reputation of the company's trademarks internationally and protect the company's huge commercial value.
4. Apply for recognition or provincial or municipal trademark recognition to protect the trademark to the greatest extent. Compared with ordinary trademarks, they have the characteristics of high visibility, high market share, good reputation, wide influence, highly certain rights and special protection by law. Our country now provides a wide range of protection and strong intensity, which can be said to be good protection for trademarks.