Trademark Transfer Network: Ten Legal Risks of Trademark

The great role of trademarks in the market economy is to identify brands, so we find that only slightly mature startups have their own LOGO, but there are also legal risks behind trademarks. Do you know entrepreneurs? Case 1: Carefully determine the trademark. Company A mainly deals in American imports. In order to reflect its commercial characteristics, they added the star-spangled banner element of the American flag when designing graphic trademarks, and submitted an application for trademark registration to the Trademark Office. Subsequently, Company A began to use the trademark and carried out a lot of advertising. Unexpectedly, a year later, the company received the Notice of Trademark Rejection from the Trademark Office, and their application for trademark registration failed. The company consulted a lawyer, and the lawyer informed that the trademark violated the relevant provisions of the Trademark Law and it was difficult to pass the examination. In the end, Company A can only accept the fact that the trademark cannot be registered, and the promotion efforts made in the early stage and the established brand benefits are all in vain. Lawyer's suggestion: The Trademark Law specifically stipulates that it shall not be used as a trademark or registered as a trademark, such as China's national flag, national emblem, military flag and medal. , including foreign names, national flags, national emblems, names and signs of intergovernmental international organizations, etc. Some signs that are deceptive, misleading, harmful to socialist morality or have other adverse effects cannot be used as trademarks. There are also some trademarks that cannot be registered because of lack of distinctiveness. In addition, the application for trademark registration cannot conflict with the legal rights previously obtained by others, such as prior similar trademarks, appearance patents, trade names, copyrights, name rights, etc., which may become obstacles to trademark registration. Enterprises should have a certain understanding of these regulations, so when choosing and determining trademarks, they should consult professional lawyers and conduct a comprehensive search. In the early stage, many enterprises paid more attention to the conceptual design and marketing promotion of brands, ignoring the legal issues of trademarks, and thought that trademark design should be handed over to the agency for application. It takes more than one year for a trademark to be formally registered. If a trademark cannot be registered because it violates the relevant provisions of the Trademark Law, the enterprise's early investment in trademark promotion will be wasted, and it is likely to lose a good development opportunity. Case 2: Be careful of the logo found by Taobao. Company B wanted to design a company logo and found a trademark design shop on Taobao. The shop provided several design patterns for it, and Company B chose a pattern that they thought was good. Company B applied to the Trademark Office for registration of the design. A year later, they also received the Notice of Trademark Rejection on the grounds that it was similar to the previously registered trademark. They found that the previously registered trademark was exactly the same as the pattern they applied for. It turns out that Taobao's design shop stole the design from the internet for buyers to choose from. Lawyer's suggestion: There are many logo design shops on Taobao, and the competition is fierce, which reduces the design cost of enterprises. This is a good thing, but enterprises should also pay attention to risks. It is good to have a preliminary idea of the trademark logo, and then ask the design company to design on this basis, avoiding using the ready-made works of the design company. At the same time, it is necessary to sign an entrusted design contract with the design company, which should stipulate the copyright ownership of the design scheme, the work can not infringe the copyright of others and the legal responsibilities that should be borne. Before the formal application, the logo should also be searched approximately to reduce the legal risk of trademark rejection. Case 3: Trademark Application and Leak Prevention Company C conceived a good word mark. In order to ensure the success of registration, they consulted a trademark agency and asked them to inquire about the general situation of the trademark on their behalf, but later, because of the cost, they chose another agency to apply for registration on their behalf. Later, their trademark was rejected because of the trademark approximation. The previous approximate trademark was exactly the same as their trademark, and the application date was only earlier than theirs. Company C only disclosed the trademark to this trademark agency before the formal application. They also learned that this agency is a company specializing in trademark registration, which specializes in registering hot trademarks in society. Soon after, the owner of the cited trademark sent a warning letter to Company C, asking them to stop using the trademark, or they would file a trademark infringement lawsuit with the court. Another solution is for company C to buy the trademark at a high price. Lawyer's suggestion: At the stage of trademark conception, we must do a good job of confidentiality and entrust an honest and reliable trademark agency or law firm. In addition to trademark agencies, employees, partners, shareholders and competitors in the enterprise may compete for leaked trademarks. In particular, there are a large number of registered trademark professionals who pay special attention to the brand information of some enterprises. Once it is confirmed that the brand of the enterprise has not applied for a trademark, they will grab it and then negotiate with the enterprise. Some enterprises strictly abide by the principle of no application and no publication, and only publish their trademarks after receiving the acceptance notice from the Trademark Office. This is a very good practice. Case 4: Trademark agency may have no lower limit. Company D wanted to apply for a trademark, and found several trademark agencies to make inquiries, and chose an agency with a low trademark quotation through the website. Shortly after the trademark declaration, Company D received the Notice of Acceptance of Trademark Registration Application from the agency, informing them that the trademark can be used now, and the official trademark registration certificate will be issued two years later. Company D began to use the trademark and waited for three years. The trademark registration certificate has not come down yet. I called the intermediary and found that the phone of the intermediary couldn't get through and the website disappeared. They hurried to the Trademark Office to inquire about their trademarks, and were told that their trademark registration application had never been submitted at all, and the Notice of Acceptance of Trademark Registration Application in their hands was forged. Only then did I find myself cheated and quickly applied for a registered trademark, but in the previous two years, similar trademarks had been applied before them, and everything was irreparable. Lawyer's suggestion: Many people can't tell the difference between "Notice of Acceptance" and "Trademark Registration Certificate", and some unscrupulous agencies use this situation to cheat and say "Notice of Acceptance" is a trademark registration certificate. Forging the admission notice is even more hateful. They didn't even apply. Cheaters use the cheap psychology of enterprises to cheat at low prices, which has also happened on Taobao recently. Thousands of dollars are small, which delays the development opportunities of enterprises. In order to prevent this from happening, enterprises should not only find reliable agents as mentioned above, but also learn to identify forged admission notices. Information about trademark applications can be found on the website of the Trademark Office. If the admission notice is forged, it will definitely not be queried online. Case 5: Unscrupulous Agency Company F is a small company. Last year, I entrusted a trademark agency to apply for a trademark, and I just got a trademark certificate this year. The boss of Company F received a phone call from other places, saying that he was interested in the trademark of Company F and wanted to buy it for 50,000 yuan. The boss of the company didn't expect his trademark to sell for so much money, and he didn't consider selling it because the trademark was in use. A few days later, the man called again and said that this trademark is very important to them, and100000 yuan can be bought. If they don't sell, they will rob all categories and sue F Company for infringement. Company F panicked. Just as the original trademark agency called to ask about the company's trademark, the boss quickly told the agency about it. The agency said that the value of your trademark is already very high, all categories should be protected, and 45 categories should be applied as soon as possible so that others can't grab the registration. The boss thinks that his trademark is so valuable that more registration will be more valuable, so he decides to spend tens of thousands of yuan to apply for various registrations. Lawyer's suggestion: this kind of fraud is not uncommon in the case, but very common, and many of my clients have encountered it. Let's just say that almost everyone who has applied for a trademark will receive a phone call from a liar, and many people will be cheated. In addition to all kinds of registered trademarks, there are also scams for copyright protection, which allow enterprises to register trademark copyright and then charge tens of thousands of yuan for copyright agency fees. Of course, applying for full-class registration is not a bad thing in some aspects, and it can protect enterprises more. But many times, enterprises simply don't need such a wide range of protection. Encouraged and deceived by swindlers, some individual industrial and commercial households even applied for full-class registration. For this kind of scandal, government law enforcement departments should not only be vigilant against swindlers, but also intensify their efforts to crack down and investigate them. Those who violate the criminal law must be severely punished, and at the same time, the fake-related institutions should be strictly investigated, credit supervision should be strengthened, and their records of dishonesty should be published and blacklisted. Case 6: Managing professional managers and clarifying trademark ownership. Company F is a large-scale food enterprise, which is run by a famous professional manager, Mr. R. The company has launched functional food and used the W trademark on it. The company invested a huge amount of advertising money in this food, making this food a household name and occupying a large market share. After a period of time, Mr. R, a professional manager, left his job because of disagreement with the company's major shareholders. When the company handed over, it was discovered that the W trademark of the company's best-selling goods was actually registered under the name of Mr. R. Mr. R explained that the brand was created and cultivated by him, and the W trademark was his intellectual property. If the company wants to continue to use it, it must pay him a huge trademark use fee every year. In a rage, the company took Mr. R to court, but the evidence presented by Mr. R in court proved that the W trademark was applied before the establishment of Company D, and then Company F had no choice but to pay Mr. R and buy the W trademark under the company name. Lawyer's suggestion: This is a real case, and its actual development and ending are far more complicated than the text (specifically, it is not appropriate, you know). In this case, we just want to explain that the owners of enterprises must attach importance to the ownership of brands, especially trademarks. It is a good phenomenon that enterprises employ professional managers more and more commonly. However, business owners cannot "reveal secrets" when delegating power. Trademark rights are not as sensitive as equity and company property, but the potential economic benefits are very great. Business owners often don't pay enough attention to it, and it's too late to regret something. Therefore, enterprises must pay attention to the internal management of intellectual property rights, often sort out the intellectual property rights of enterprises, find problems and solve them in time. If in this case, the owner of the company found the registration of the brand trademark in time and corrected it, the following problems would not occur. Case 7: Beware of trademark transfer fraud H company is eager to buy a registered trademark in order to meet the requirements of opening a shop in Tmall Mall. They found a trademark through an idle trademark trading website, which is very good and in line with their company's positioning. They found the trademark seller, and then the two sides clinched a deal at100000 yuan, and went through the trademark transfer formalities. H company successfully opened a shop in Tmall Mall with this trademark and began to promote it. But soon they received a lawyer's letter from the original trademark owner, asking them to stop using the trademark on the grounds that it had never been transferred at all. They immediately contacted the trademark seller and found that they could not contact the seller. It turns out that the seller is not the real trademark owner at all, but a professional trademark liar who uses forged documents and procedures to defraud the trademark transfer. In the end, the original trademark owner returned the trademark through legal means, and H Company suffered huge losses. Lawyer's suggestion: Due to Tmall Mall's requirements for registered trademarks, trademark transfer became popular overnight, which made trademark hoarders breathe a sigh of relief and some fraudsters saw opportunities. In the past, there were some fraudulent acts in the process of trademark transfer, mainly the means adopted by shareholders or interested parties to compete for specific trademarks. The current situation is that scammers directly sell other people's trademarks. Some' smart' swindlers even go to the Trademark Office to search their own trademarks according to the list after inquiring about the cancellation or cancellation information of enterprises, and then forge official seal materials for transfer fraud. In order to avoid this kind of trademark transfer fraud, entrepreneurs must do their homework before the transfer. For optimistic trademarks, we should focus on the real situation of their rights. For example, search the enterprise credit status of the trademark seller on the enterprise credit website of the industrial and commercial bureau, and carefully check the original price of the trademark certificate, not the copy or scanned copy. Also pay attention to the origin of trademarks, and be more careful about trademarks on some informal trademark trading websites. Case 8: Brand joining fraud is heavy. Xiao Yi opened a restaurant, but it never caught fire. He thought of brand joining. He found a foreign fast food chain on the Internet to join. After several telephone contacts and field visits to the headquarters, he decided to join this chain brand. They signed a brand joining agreement, and Xiao I paid tens of thousands of brand joining fees. Fast food restaurants have been open for several months, but business is good. Suddenly, industrial and commercial law enforcement officers came to the door and told Xiao I that she had infringed the trademark right of another fast food chain store and immediately stopped using the trademark and accepted the punishment. Xiao I showed the law enforcement officers the brand joining agreement he signed, and the law enforcement officers told him that the brand trademark in this agreement was copied by a fast food brand, and there was no registration at all, only a Notice of Acceptance of Trademark Registration Application. Lawyer's suggestion: The Notice of Trademark Acceptance is an acceptance certificate issued by the Trademark Office to the trademark applicant after the application for trademark registration is submitted, which is not the same as the Trademark Registration Certificate at all. Replacing (or counterfeiting) trademark registration certificate with trademark acceptance notice is very common in brand joining fraud. Brands have great trademarks and may not be registered at all. They don't care whether they can register or not. As long as they get the acceptance notice, they can start licensing. Although the law does not prohibit the licensing of trademarks in the application, that is, unregistered trademarks can be licensed to others and charged a license fee, the rights of unregistered trademarks are in an uncertain state. On the one hand, it may be rejected by the first instance, on the other hand, it may constitute infringement on other trademark owners. In order to prevent being cheated in the process of brand joining, it is suggested that obtaining the trademark registration certificate is a hard condition for the brand when investigating the brand joining project, otherwise try not to take risks, and at the same time, we should examine the real strength of the brand, don't listen to the brand's bluff, and besides looking at the flagship store designated by them, we should also conduct on-the-spot investigations on the operation of other franchisees. Case 9: Brand Legal Risks in Company Acquisition In order to expand its business, Company G wants to acquire Company Q in a certain province. Q company specializes in a brand of girls' jewelry, with hundreds of specialty stores all over the country. After G Company bought most shares of Q Company at a high price, it started the national brand promotion and invited an idol-level female singer in Taiwan Province Province as the image spokesperson. Soon Company G received a summons from the court, and they were sued by a clothing company in other provinces for trademark infringement. At this time, Company G asked a lawyer to inquire about the trademark status of Company Q, and found that the trademark registration application of the company's brand had been rejected by the Trademark Office, and the previously registered trademarks belonged to this clothing company in other provinces. In this case, Company G and its affiliated companies have been convicted of trademark infringement in the first instance and compensated the other party for losses of 30 million yuan. The second trial is in progress. Lawyer's suggestion: There are many disputes between company acquisition and M&A's trademark rights, generally because M&A has not examined the true ownership of trademark rights before, and the company's trademark is actually registered under the name of a third party, which is an independent enterprise legal person, resulting in subsequent disputes. This case is different from the above situation, that is, the acquirer has not carefully examined the registration status of the main trademark of the acquired party. In fact, at the time of acquisition, the main trademark of the acquired company was still in the state of unregistered application, and there were very similar previously registered trademarks in the same category, so the main trademark of the acquired company could not be registered at all. As long as the buyer's lawyer does a good job in trademark retrieval, this kind of low-level mistake will be avoided. In the process of company acquisition, especially in the case that corporate brand equity is very important, we must do a good job in trademark investigation. Case 10: Beware of being caught fishing. K company is a sales company, mainly engaged in imported auto parts. Several people came to the company and asked to buy imported headlights, but company K did not sell such headlights. Some people say that K company can purchase it in large quantities. Company K thought it was a good business and contacted the relevant sales units to purchase goods, but the price was much higher than the price given by the ordering party. The sales unit has proposed that it can import second-class factory parts (counterfeit parts), and the profit margin is not small. Company K purchased a batch of factory auxiliary parts for the orderer. The goods mentioned just now, the company's warehouse was seized by law enforcement officers. K company knew that it had been caught. Lawyer's suggestion: Although fishing is regarded as immoral behavior, it has been used by professional anti-counterfeiting companies, and it is difficult for fishermen to prove it in court proceedings. Some professional anti-counterfeiting companies have task agreements with anti-counterfeiting brands, or commission according to the amount of anti-counterfeiting compensation. Sometimes manufacturers need to set up a large number of anti-counterfeiting cases to create a warm anti-counterfeiting atmosphere. Even some manufacturers are fishing and counterfeiting in order to stop each other in the process of trademark confirmation. Some sellers bought a lot of fakes in the process of being caught, and were later sentenced to criminal punishment. Faced with this situation, sales enterprises must keep in mind the law-abiding operation, and do not cause irreparable consequences because of temporary greed. Conclusion: There are more than ten kinds of legal risks in trademark affairs. These problems include technical problems and social moral standards, but ultimately enterprises need to pay attention to the legal aspects of brands (trademarks). The bigger the entrepreneur is, the more important the legal foundation work of enterprise brand is. There are great hidden risks in corporate brands. The greater the development of the enterprise, the greater the loss. Entrepreneurs must pay attention!