1. The reason why Guanshengyuan has the same name is not accurate enough

The Guanshengyuan brand was founded in 1918 and began producing mooncakes in 1934. The founder Xian Guansheng invested more than 20 companies located in Shanghai, Wuhan, Kunming, Chongqing, Xi'an, Tianjin and other places. After liberation, these companies were all nationalized. The companies scattered across the country operate independently without any assets or business relationships. Businesses that were originally unrelated in terms of business operations ended up causing harm to each other after the incident. After the incident, Guanshengyuan, which was affected in Shanghai and other places, complained that it was wronged. Most media believed that it was caused by historical reasons. However, historical reasons are only an important part of it, but they are not the whole problem, nor the root of the problem. From the perspective of intellectual property law, the current "Enterprise Name Registration Management Regulations" are the crux of the problem. A spokesman for the Shanghai Guanshengyuan Group once said that there are hundreds of companies using the Guanshengyuan name, but only about 10 of them are related to the Xian family, and they operate independently and are not affiliated with each other. This raises a question worth thinking about: How can those Guanshengyuan Groups that have nothing to do with the Xian family enjoy the brand name Guanshengyuan? This actually involves intellectual property knowledge about font sizes.

The font size refers to the trade name, which refers to the core content of the company name, a specific mark of the company's personality, and is the only content in the company name that can be chosen independently by the parties involved. The trade name should consist of more than two Chinese characters or ethnic minority characters. According to my country's "Enterprise Name Registration and Management Regulations", a manufacturer's name consists of four parts: the name of the administrative division, the name (trade name), the industry to which it belongs, and the organizational form. Taking Nanjing Guanshengyuan as an example, Nanjing is the division, Guanshengyuan is the brand name, food is the industry, and limited company is the organizational form. The only distinguishing word that can really play a role in a place is the font size. In this case, it refers to the three words "Guanshengyuan", because the other three elements in the company name cannot have an exclusive role. However, Article 6 of the "Enterprise Name Registration Management Regulations" stipulates that the name of an enterprise shall not be the same as the name of its registered counterpart within the jurisdiction of the registration authority. To a certain extent, this allows enterprises in different places to register under the same name to engage in business production. At present, domestic enterprise name registration is divided into four levels, namely county level, prefecture level, provincial level and national level. Industrial and commercial departments at all levels are allowed to register if there are no duplicate names within their jurisdiction. From a nationwide perspective, the coexistence of famous enterprises is inevitable. For example, there is no Guanshengyuan in Chengdu. The registration authority in Chengdu can register regardless of whether there is one in Shanghai. The root cause of the "Huadu Incident" in Guangdong a few years ago is the same as this incident. They are both products of the inconsistency between my country's current enterprise name registration regulations and the spirit of equal competition in the market economy. Under the conditions of market economy, it is impossible for goods to be sold only within the jurisdiction of the registration authority. In this way, the products of companies with the same name on the market will inevitably lead to confusion and mistaken purchases by consumers. There is only one Haier in the country, and it has branches in many places across the country. However, Haier has always had only one unified operating entity, and different Haier production companies are one family. Why don’t many consumers across the country regard many companies with the same name as one family? In the United States, Germany and other countries, the registration of enterprise names is carried out nationally rather than locally. The purpose is to avoid unfair competition caused by the same name. China's existing corporate name registration and management system encourages unfair competition in operations. Why do so many companies that have nothing to do with Xian Guansheng's founding use this name? Most of them are just to cling to the old brand and name of "Guanshengyuan" , able to survive by relying on the reputation of a strong person even when his own abilities are beyond his capabilities. After joining the WTO, our country's enterprises are facing more severe competition. We should see the shortcomings of the current enterprise registration management system and see the side that is not conducive to fair competition among enterprises. Analyzing the Guanshengyuan incident only focuses on quality issues, and simply attributing the cause of the disaster to the company with the same name to history is incomplete and fails to grasp the root of the problem.

After the Nanjing Guanshengyuan incident, consumers regard different Guanshengyuan as one company, which shows that consumers mainly rely on the identification of brand sizes to purchase goods, and the distinguishing role played by trademarks is insignificant. It can be seen from relevant reports that Guanshengyuan in Shanghai has long been deeply affected by the negative impact associated with the company with the same name. Why didn't it find a way to use the "生" trademark to differentiate its products from other Guanshengyuan manufacturers? . In reports, the media mostly sympathizes with the implicated companies, which is as it should be, but they do not pay enough attention to the protection of knowledge related to intellectual property rights that they do not use in their own operations and to avoid confusion.

News reports have the function of public opinion supervision. The exposure of the Nanjing Guanshengyuan incident is generally a good thing. This kind of reporting itself should be protected by law. However, the report itself is to expose the problem, not to amplify the problem. If reporting on a company's problems causes damage to the entire industry, it cannot be said to be a successful report. However, this report has created such a reality, and some media have become defendants in this incident. Any revealing report itself has a negative effect, especially reports in the economic field, which directly involve the economic interests of relevant peers. When the Nanjing Guanshengyuan report caused quite a stir among Chinese people, the press failed to see the crux of the trade name registration system, failed to grasp the weakness of enterprises’ lack of knowledge about intellectual property rights, and failed to deepen the problem. Intellectual property rights play an important role in the world economy and trade. After joining the WTO, Chinese enterprises must learn to use the relevant rules of intellectual property rights to protect themselves in their operations. The issues related to intellectual property knowledge exposed in the Guanshengyuan incident may be a good thing. It not only allows us to see some problems in the current system, but also allows the press to see its own shortcomings in this regard. Intellectual property rights have a huge impact on a country's economy. It is a good thing that the press experienced this lesson before joining the WTO in the long run.

I'm from the Law Department of Zhejiang University. I'm here to try my hand at it. I don't know how my analysis goes.