Ten Years Of "Shanzhai" Road

In the major events of China's intellectual property rights protection, 31 trademark was once regarded as a cottage product of Mercedes Benz, which was obstructed in the process of overseas registration. Hisense's "HiSense" trademark was first registered by SIEMENS overseas, and it was almost reduced to SIEMENS's cottage product.

Recently, a marathon incident that lasted for ten years, which is called the history of Chinese children's wear trademark registration, has attracted the attention of the industry.

As a well-known brand of children's clothing industry in China, Annil (An Naier) children's wear has proved its existence value with 10 years' efforts, and has come out of the shadow of "Shanzhai".

These 10 years are also the 10 years of self cognition and self-development of Chinese enterprises at the intellectual property level.

Trademark awareness is weak, hidden danger for being "Shanzhai"

"At the very beginning, we did not have much ambition in establishing the company. It was not enough confidence, no long-term plan, let alone trademark protection.

Although a trademark was registered at that time only two thousand or three thousand yuan, the entire category of registration will not cost much, but because there is no trademark awareness, registration in trademark category is not considered comprehensive, and is plagiarized, imitated and run by other brands to make up for it, the cost will be very high.

Cao Zhang, general manager of the company, said in an interview that he hoped that more Chinese enterprises should not blindly pursue their development, weigh the pros and cons, and attach importance to the protection of intellectual property rights.

As we all know, trademark is the core of the brand, and also an important part of the intangible assets. It can give enterprises a sustained profit over a long period of time, so some economists will refer to the trademark as a "mobile cash machine".

With the rapid development of China's economy, China's own brands are also rising rapidly. However, the weak awareness of intellectual property protection has enabled some foreign enterprises to take advantage of it. The phenomenon of Chinese brands being registered overseas or the registration of Chinese enterprises' trademarks are being obstructed by overseas companies.

The seemingly simple trademark war has become the most outpost of trade game between China and foreign countries.

Cao said, "the brand awareness of Chinese enterprises is not more than 20 years. Many large enterprises have also suffered the loss of trademark registration. In the 03 year, because of the hindered overseas registration, Lenovo had to abandon the" legend "value of 20 billion yuan, and replaced it as" Lenovo ".

Foreign enterprises are very experienced, they are covered with intellectual property protection clothing, then the development will come to an end, and they are also very good at using intellectual property "big stick" to take the opportunity to suppress competitors, especially the lack of intellectual property protection awareness of Chinese enterprises.

Annil (An Naier) children's clothing is currently focused on the domestic market, and now the impact is not big. There are many problems encountered by big brands without Lenovo, but we also feel the pressure. An Naier's English "Annil" is similar to that of a children's clothing brand in the United States. Therefore, our trademarks in British and American homes may have to be changed, which is bound to have an impact on our future development plan.

Indeed, the intellectual property rights of entrepreneurs should not be disjointed while the Chinese economy is getting closer to the international market.

According to the data of the Trademark Bureau of the State Administration for Industry and commerce, in 2003, the total number of Chinese enterprises applying for international registration in other countries' trademark offices did not exceed 3000, while the number of trademarks registered by foreign enterprises in China was tens of thousands.

In 2004, 46% of the 500 most valuable brands in China published by the world brand laboratory were not registered in the United States, 50% were not registered in Australia, 54% were not registered in Canada, and the unregistered rate in the EU was as high as 76%.

Because Chinese enterprises are not familiar with the rules of international trade game, they give their competitors an opportunity.

For this reason, experts from the Ministry of Commerce of China have issued warnings to domestic enterprises to remind them to take active measures, otherwise the investment abroad will be affected.