In recent years, with time-honored brands gradually going abroad, intellectual property resistance has also appeared repeatedly: Wang Zhihe was registered in Germany, Tsingtao beer was registered in the United States, and Tongrentang, daughter Hong and Dukang were registered in Japan. The experience of time-honored brands abroad is not optimistic, and domestic time-honored brands also have a lot of troubles.

In Taiwan, there is a famous food enterprise that has worked hard for more than 60 years. Because the trademark was registered by its brothers, the time-honored brand had to be renamed!

Case history

Xindongyang Co., Ltd. is a famous food company in Taiwan. In the 1960s, the founder Mai Xingfu led his brothers to start with fried meat floss and other foods. It has steadily become a famous food brand and one of the three "hand gifts" in Taiwan.

After the death of Founder Mai Xingfu, his second brother Mai Kuancheng succeeded as chairman, and his third brother Mai Shi expanded the mainland market. Later, the two brothers parted ways due to different business ideas.

When Mai Kuancheng planned to enter the mainland market, he suddenly found that a company called "Fujian Xindongyang Sports Entertainment Co., Ltd." was applying for registration of a series of trademarks related to "Xindongyang", such as "Xindongyang Golf Course".

Mai Kuancheng and new Dongyang Co., Ltd. were blocked from entering the mainland. New Dongyang Co., Ltd. was forced to enter the Chinese Mainland market under the brand names of "Tang idea" and "Shanghai Baoyao", which can be said to have been greatly affected.

As this trademark is designated to be used in "golf course facilities", "fitness club" and other services, it has a strong correlation with its own catering and hotel business, so Xindongyang Co., Ltd. immediately filed an application for trademark objection.

In the objection application, Xindongyang found one thing. The founder of this Fujian Xindongyang company was Mai Shilai, the third younger brother. In other words, the former founder and his own brothers secretly applied for the trademark of "new Dongyang" series in the mainland in the name of private or investment company!

Final decision of the judges

The retrial case of No. 6870088 "new Dongyang Golf Course" trademark not being registered is a small one among many retrials, but it is also a special one, because the relationship between the registrant and the opponent in this case is a pair of brothers.

Fujian Xindongyang believes that before the application for registration of the objected trademark, the original objector has never used the same or similar trademark in the same or similar services specified in the re examination trademark. Mai Shi, the founder of the applicant, has not violated the provisions of the trademark law by registering Xindongyang and the trademarks containing Xindongyang characters.

The objector Xindongyang Co., Ltd. believes that Xindongyang is the trademark and trade name of the original objector, which is its original creation and has high popularity. The legal representative of the applicant has a representative relationship with the original dissident. Without the authorization of the original dissident, it establishes a company by itself and registers the trademark previously used by the original dissident in the name of the company, which constitutes a malicious rush to register. The applicant's behavior violates public order, good customs and the principle of good faith, and requests not to approve the registration of the challenged trademark.

The focus of this case is whether Mai Shilai's application for trademark registration through its privately established company constitutes a rush to register. According to the provisions of the trademark law, "the agent or representative registers the trademark of the principal or representative in his own name without authorization".

The Trademark Review and Adjudication Board finally ruled that Mai Shilai was once the vice chairman of the original objector and is still its director and shareholder. It violates the term "without authorization, the agent or representative registers the trademark of the principal or representative in his own name" as mentioned in the first paragraph of Article 15 of the trademark law. Without the authorization of the company, the act of applying for a registered trademark without authorization constitutes malicious rush registration, and the challenged trademark will not be approved.

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"Time-honored brands" need more intellectual property protection

In fact, in recent years, intellectual property infringement events such as trademark competition, goodwill damage and domain name infringement of Chinese time-honored brands have occurred frequently, such as the North-South dispute of daoxiangcun trademark, and many time-honored brands such as Qingfeng steamed stuffed bun, Quanjude and Liubiju have encountered embarrassment in the process of brand protection.

Time honored brands usually have a distinctive traditional cultural background of the Chinese nation and profound cultural heritage, have been widely recognized by the society and form a brand with good reputation. However, in recent years, many time-honored brands and famous brands have fallen down one after another, leaving many regrets after a burst of noise.

Industry insiders believe that to protect China's time-honored brands, on the one hand, the national legislative department needs to issue corresponding laws to effectively protect the intellectual property rights of time-honored enterprises and give more care and support at the national policy level; At the same time, the owners or successors of time-honored brands need to strengthen their awareness of intellectual property protection and rights protection.

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