1. Common trademark infringement behaviors
The first is to use the company name to infringe on the trademark rights of others.
Trademarks and business names are both intellectual property rights and are subject to different laws. Since the registration of trademarks and the registration of business names are not in the same department, and trademark registration is for the whole country, business names are only for county-level jurisdictions. Therefore, collision between registered trademarks and business names is inevitable. In order to imitate famous brands, some criminals often register a company's trade name in Hong Kong or abroad with the same name as other people's famous and well-known trademarks, and then use their own company's trade name prominently on their products, labels and decorations, bills, and advertisements. Make consumers mistakenly believe that the company's products and registered trademarks are the same company. For example, the trademark "Goldlion" is world-famous, and Italian Goldlion, Oriental Goldlion, and Hong Kong Goldlion have appeared on the market. Regarding the situation of using someone else's registered trademark as a corporate name, we believe that as long as you use the corporate name separately and prominently on product labels, manuals, advertising decorations, and font sizes, even if the font is different from someone else's registered trademark, we will use the trademark as the trademark. The reason for investigating and punishing infringement is very simple. A company name consists of four parts, namely region, trade name, industry, and composition form. Why do you use the trade name alone and prominently? This is obviously a subjective and malicious attempt to imitate famous brands.
The second is to use patent rights to infringe on the exclusive rights of others to register trademarks.
This type of illegal party is more cunning than the former. Their method is to apply for a patent for a design that is similar to someone else’s registered trademark as a product packaging decoration. Once the patent certificate is obtained, they will use it to patent the design on the product packaging. Use it to achieve the purpose of being close to famous brands. If you want to accuse him of infringement, he will use the patent certificate as a shield. We believe that although the exclusive right to trademark and the exclusive right to design are both intellectual property rights and are regulated by the Trademark Law and Patent Law respectively, they should abide by the principle of good faith in the General Principles of Civil Law and must not infringe on the rights of others. Priority. After the trademark owner applies to the Patent Office for cancellation of the infringing patent, the trademark infringement will be investigated and dealt with based on similar infringement.
The third is similar trademark infringement by using Chinese characters in other people’s combined trademarks as product names.
Some registered trademarks are trademarks that are a combination of Chinese, graphics, English or Chinese pinyin, such as the "Macro" combination trademark of Guangdong Macro Group. Some companies use this on the packaging and labels of similar products. The product name used "Macro brand water heater". When we pointed out that he was infringing, they slyly claimed that our trademark is a combination of Chinese characters, pinyin, and graphics, and we only gave the water heater a trade name, which was useless. How can we say that the pinyin and graphics on their trademarks are infringement? We believe that Chinese people generally only remember Chinese characters for combination trademarks, and do not care about pinyin, English, and graphics. They put the Chinese characters of other people's combination trademarks on their products, causing the public to misunderstand It is the product of the trademark owner, which constitutes similar trademark infringement.
Fourthly, the Chinese characters used in the product names are similar to other people’s trademarks, which constitutes infringement.
There are many such phenomena, and the parties involved in the violation often make a fuss about the Chinese characters in other people’s registered trademarks. The pronunciation of some characters is different from others' registered trademarks, but the fonts are similar. For example, "Wuliangchun" is a nationally famous wine, but "Yu Liangchun" wine was found on the market, and the cursive word "yu" is similar to "五", causing the public to mistakenly think it is "Wuliangchun" wine. The cosmetics "Vassoon" are very popular, and the cosmetics "Shayi" appear on the market. If you have "Wahaha", I will use "Hahawa", if you use "Robust", I will use "Lashishi"... this kind of thing In this case, the criterion we hold is that if a trademark has two Chinese characters and someone else uses one character that is the same and another similar character, we will determine that he is a similar infringement; if there are three Chinese characters in the trademark, as long as someone uses a different character on similar products , the remaining two words are the same, and we also determine similar infringement.
Fifth, different arrangements of English or Chinese pinyin or different individual letters constitute similar infringement.
The registered trademark of the infringed party in such cases is often in English or Chinese Pinyin.
For example, the registered trademark of Italian famous brand Valentino is "vaIentine", while the trademark of the clothing produced by Valentino Clothing (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd. on the market is "valuninno". Although there are differences in letters between the two, the latter is more numerous than the former. There is an "n" word, and one letter is different, but it is difficult for consumers to distinguish it without looking carefully. The latter constitutes a similar infringement to the former. Another example is that some motorcycles on the market are marked with the "honpa" trademark, which is only "p" and "d" apart from the registered trademark "Honda" of Japanese Honda motorcycles. We believe that the trademark of such motorcycles constitutes an infringement on Japan. Similar infringement of the registered trademark of Honda Giken Industrial Co., Ltd.
Sixth, the combined use of two or more registered trademarks constitutes similar infringement.
For example, a clothing company has applied to the National Trademark Office for two registered trademarks, "Ya" and "Gore", and then combined the two trademarks to become "Younger". Although there are differences in fonts, it still constitutes a near infringement of the well-known trademark "Youngor". There is also a manufacturer of home appliances that has applied to register the trademarks "Chang'er" and "Haihong". When using them, they deliberately put the two trademarks together and turned them into "Changhong Haier" to mislead consumers. It is a product jointly produced by Haier and Changhong. Although the Trademark Law does not specify that only one trademark is allowed to be used for a product, and these trademarks have been registered, in terms of specific use, they have purposefully combined the two trademarks to mislead consumers and constitute a subjective and malicious act. infringement of a well-known trademark.
Seventh is similar infringement of trademark graphics.
Some of the parties involved in the violation are generally related to world-famous graphic trademarks. The most serious one is the "crocodile" graphic trademark of French Lacoste. The trademark features a crocodile with its head turned to the right, its mouth open, and its tail slightly upturned. There are nearly 30 different crocodiles found in China. We believe that except for the crocodile shirts in Hong Kong and the two left-facing crocodile trademarks of Singapore Crocodile International Company, which are within the objection period, the rest are either crocodiles wearing crowns or with tails hooked downwards. , regardless of whether the crocodile is riding on a human, or the graphic trademark looks like both a crocodile and a lizard, or is a bit like a crocodile and a bit like a gecko, it all constitutes a near infringement of the French Lacoste crocodile trademark.