No, recently Apple sued "Pear" again!
Recently, Apple took legal action against an application called Prepear on the grounds that the pear icon design used in the Prepear application is too similar to Apple's icon design. Although Prepear is engaged in helping users plan meals, manage recipes and distribute food, it has nothing to do with Apple.
Apple's emphasis on trademarks can be seen. In order to protect their trademarks, many enterprises have their own methods, but there are also many enterprises that do not attach importance to the existence of trademarks, and wait until the situation is too late to end before going back to deal with trademark problems, and finally make themselves lose more than they gain!
For example, the well-known "Muji".
From 1999, 1 17 10, Good Goods Plan applied to the Trademark Office for the registration of the "Muji" trademark, and the designated use categories were 16, 20, 2 1.
Six months later, China Company registered the "Muji" trademark in 24 categories.
Japanese MUJI tried to get back the 24th trademark through litigation, but was sued by China Company, claiming that it infringed the trademark right of MUJI in textiles. In this battle, MUJI lost.
Worse than MUJI is the famous brand of sports shoes, New Balance.
In the 1990s, the American fashion brand New Balance entered China and adopted the Chinese name "New Balance". After it became popular, its agent in China found that it was not protected by a registered trademark in China! So the agent in China registered the trademark of "New Balance" and successfully registered it, and then the agent in China privately produced a large number of counterfeit products, which caused serious damage to the brand of New Balance and eventually led to its withdrawal from the China market.
There is a pit in the trademark: first operate, then register.
New Balance stepped on this pit, which eventually led to the end of "forced to withdraw from the China market". Although New Balance later killed a belated comeback, trademark disputes obviously restricted the expansion and development of New Balance in China due to the protracted appeals of various trademark cases.
Lenovo, a well-known computer brand, has also stepped on this pit.
Lenovo's original English name is Legend, which has been used in China for 19 years.
But around 200 1, Lenovo became a minor celebrity and wanted to start global development, only to find that Lenovo had been registered abroad. I found it too troublesome to buy it back, but I changed my name to Lenovo in 2003. The accumulated brand assets, brand awareness, recognition and brand image were once damaged.
In addition to Lenovo, a well-known example is Hisense.
1993, Hisense registered "Hisense" in China. However, Siemens registered in Germany as Hisense 1999. After quarreling for several years, Hisense finally redeemed the German "Hisense" trademark with 500,000 euros.
In our country, many entrepreneurs don't pay enough attention to trademarks, and they all want to operate first and then register. They think that it is enough to make their own products and provide quality services, while trademark registration is only a form, and registration is not important. It is precisely because of the operator's laissez-faire attitude towards trademark registration that once the trademark has a certain influence and popularity, it will be too late to register.
Brand is the most important asset of an enterprise, and trademark is the most basic carrier of brand. As a kind of intellectual property, trademark is an intangible asset, and the protection of trademark cannot be overemphasized.
Therefore, there is a Chinese-style "defensive registration", which means "I have occupied all the pits, and I am not afraid that others will engage me."
In a famous case, Laoganma registered 192 trademarks, including Laoganpa, Laoandie, Laoganniang, Laomenstruating, adopted son, etc., and became a family of her own.
This practice is very common in the industry, and there is a famous example: Alibaba.
Not just dad, as early as 2007, Alibaba had registered the whole family: Sister Ali, Sister Ali, Grandma Ali, Grandpa Ali, Brother Ali, Uncle Ali, Aunt Ali ... Ali's whole family was caught in the net, and it was completely registered, so that others had no chance.
In the early years, many people didn't realize the importance of trademarks, because there were fewer brands and fewer entrepreneurial opportunities. In recent years, with the advent of the era of national entrepreneurship and the development of e-commerce platform, the short video industry has exploded, and everyone has started to create brands and operate online and offline stores. When the momentum was fierce, I suddenly found that the trademark was not enough!
Many companies put a commodity or service on the market for months or even years before registering a trademark, and then find that the trademark has already been registered! After investing a lot of money in the market, I found that the trademark could not be used, so I had to start over! Enterprises ignore the essence of trademarks and do not understand the importance of trademark registration and protection.
In other words, only when you are sick do you know the importance of health, and only when you are strangled do you know the value of a trademark!
For those who are interested in starting a company in any industry, they need to be strongly aware of the importance of trademark registration and protection! Registered trademarks can't wait until the enterprise grows. When your brand reaches a certain scale and popularity, you will pay a great price if you go back to deal with trademark problems.
The lion opens his mouth, and the other party asks you to pay a large sum of money to buy a trademark, or directly sue you, so that your goods can't be operated off the shelf and you can only be forced to change your name.
So everyone should remember that trademark registration should be sooner rather than later! Being one step ahead of others, registering a trademark protects your rights and interests, and can also save you a lot of unnecessary trouble in the future!
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