Trademark Service Japan
For many consumers, each side of the Cola War has its specific color: The can of Coca Cola is always red, the Pepsi can is blue, which makes it easy to recognize your favorite brand even in countries where you can not read the local writing style, such as China: Pepsi enthusiasts will chose the blue can while Coca Cola aficionados will take the red one.
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The Chinese State Intellectual Property Office SIPO reports 33 cases of “general violations of Olympic symbols” during the first half of 2007, with an estimated value of 301,700 Yuan (30,000 Euro). The state imposed 284,200 Yuan in fines (27,000 Euro) and seized and removed 5,123 labels containing Olympic symbols.
In the same period, SIPO handled 109 cases of dealing with the infringement of exclusive rights of Olympic symbols (probably counterfeiting of goods produced by exclusive licensees) with an estimate value of 891,500 Yuan (85,000 Euro) and the total amount of fines running up to 1,065,100 Yuan (101,000 Euro).
The customs in the province Fujian confiscated 5,000 counterfeited tags using the log “Beijing 2008 Olympics” or “Beijing 2008″.
Considering the overall low number of cases, one can probably safely assume the number of unreported cases to be much higher.
The Wahaha Food Co., a joint venture formed by the French dairy maker and the Chinese Hangzhou Wahaha Group sued the China Trade Mark Office (CTMO) argueing that the CTMO acted unlawfully in denying the transfer of the trademarks to the joint venture.
The U.S. Government has asked the World Trade Organization (WTO) to rule in a complaint against China over the piracy of copyrighted movies, music, software and books. Read the rest of this entry »
Yamaha Motor Corporation Ltd. (Japan) obtained a landmark legal decision of Chinese Supreme People’s Court against several Chinese motorcycle makers (among others Zhejiang Huatian Industry Co., Taizhou Jiaji Motorcycle Distribution Co., Taizhou Huatian Motorcycle Distribution Co.) for using Yamaha Motors` trademarks without permission.
The court ordered the defendants to pay record damages to the amount of 8.3 million yuan.
