The New Balance You Bought Is Really True. So Does Xin Bai Lun Want You To Know.

As one of the four brand of running shoes, New Balance is very popular in China. Cantonese even calls this brand "N Zi" kindly. It is not lack of fans, no shortage of users, no shortage of classic shoes. But in China, it has no shortage of "cousins" who have actively sought after "relatives".

This "cousin" is not a New Balance brand in China for many years, but a brand name brand, brand name, shoe type and brand logo.

　　 New Bai Lun and New York are stupid.

New Balance has been trapped in Shanzhai for several years, and its "cousins" have made a lot of efforts.

There are at least two Shanzhai stores in a business district. Not far from a genuine New Balance, there may be a cottage brand that is famous from all angles, such as New Balanced, New Barlun, new balance, new brun, Newban and new brun.

The existence of these Shanzhai brands has a strong impact on the reputation and commercial value of the original brand. New Balance, of course, did not sit idly by, but picked up legal weapons to defend its legitimate rights and interests.

On the morning of April 16th, the people's Court of Pudong New Area, Shanghai, made a first instance judgment on a case of unfair competition against New Balance. Request "NEW. BARLUN" Brand New York (China) limited to stop the unfair competition behavior of "New Balance" brand Fang Xin brun trade (China) Co., Ltd., and publicly declare that it will eliminate the impact, compensate for economic losses 10 million yuan and safeguard rights and reasonable expenses 800 thousand yuan.

Although it did not fully agree to the 30 million yuan compensation proposed by New Balance, it was also accepted by other plaintiffs New Balance. For New Balance, which is plagued by trademarks in the Chinese market, this is a huge improvement.

Most people do not know that New Balance actually entered China in the 90s of last century with the brand name of "New York". At that time, its exclusive agent in Yangjiang, the union shoe company, failed to help it succeed, and even brought a lot of bad memories to it.

The company snatch the "New York" brand, privately expanded its output and produced a large number of retro shoes printed with the word "N", which caused great damage to the brand market. In the end, New Balance cancelled the exclusive agency of the company and quietly withdrew from the mainland market.

But the fast developing Chinese market still left New Balance behind, and they finally came back in 2003. This time, the trademark was not registered by agents. They registered trademarks such as New Balance, NB and N letters in China Trademark Office. Agents use the translation of "new hundred Lun" to promote marketing.

But this time, New Balance did not register the name of Chinese translation as a trademark.

New Balance's trademark layout mistakes have become "business opportunities" in the eyes of other businesses. For a time, the names of new Chinese translation of New Balance, such as New York, NLB, and New York, were registered as trademarks. From the point of view of trademark right, New Balance can not use these translated trademarks, otherwise it will be sued.

New Balance was once taken to the court by a private enterprise in Guangdong. The company was the owner of the brand.

The trademark was applied by private enterprises in June 2004 and registered in January 2008. In the end, the company set up a special counter in its famous shopping malls with its own legal brand, selling its own N shoes, and making money.

New Balance, of course, did not recognize it. It also filed a lawsuit against the court, accusing the private shoe company of being plagiarized and imitated "new hundred Lun" trademarks. However, the private enterprise is not at risk. The counterclaim that the new hundred Lun trade has infringed its registered trademark of "Bai Lun" and "new hundred Lun", and asked New Balance to compensate them 98 million. Moreover, the private enterprise has also won the victory.

The final judgment of the Guangdong Provincial Higher People's court held that New balance, who was aware of the fact that the trademark registered by the private shoe enterprises was still valid and effective, chose to continue to use the "new hundred Lun" to mark and publicize its products, and was sentenced to 5 million yuan in compensation for the private shoe enterprises.

For New balance, this is really a past that we do not want to recall.

But today, New Balance finally won a cottage brand. Although it will also face dozens of brand new brands such as New, Bai, Lun and ramble, it will be worth celebrating.

The different results of the two appeal of New Balance are also a microcosm of China's changes in the protection of intellectual property rights.

Trademark dispute is more than a new one.

Brands such as New Balance, which fall into trademark disputes, are not few. The trademark litigation recently discussed includes the trademark dispute between Jordan and Jordan, Bruce Lee's daughter's action against genuine Kung Fu, and the trademark dispute of Muji.

The most famous one is the "Jordan" trademark, which has been lawsuits for 8 years. Most people think that Jordan sports is Michael Jordan's own sports brand, sports silhouette is his name, he is also professional sports equipment. It was not until 2012 when Michael Jordan filed an application as an applicant to withdraw Jordan Jordan and the trademark of Jordan sports company, that we knew that this was also "Li Gui".

This Li Gui's enthusiasm is omni-directional, not only using the other's name, silhouette, or even applied for more than 100 trademark registration with Michael Jordan's very similar, even Jordan's son's name has not been let go. More cunningly, their registered trademarks also used the barriers of the Chinese language system to register the trademarks of "Qiaodan" and "QIAODAN".

This Li Gui also won Li Kui. From 2014 to 2015, the first intermediate people's Court of Beijing and the Beijing Higher People's court carried out the first and second instance of the dispute respectively. Michael Jordan lost the case, because the court held that Michael Jordan did not own the right of "QIAODAN" in the Chinese phonetic alphabet.

Jordan then appealed.

In March 4th of this year, the Supreme Court made a final judgment, and revoked the administrative ruling of the original Trademark Review and Adjudication Board and the administrative judgment of the two level court in Beijing. The State Intellectual Property Office of the Supreme People's Court of Intellectual Property Office re ruled the trademark of Jordan and the trademark.

It can be envisaged that after our country pays more and more attention to the protection of intellectual property rights, Jordan should soon be able to protect his legitimate rights and interests with legal weapons.

In determining such disputes, it is also a key point for companies with trademark rights to produce products of corresponding categories. After all, the production of goods may be a Shanzhai business, but even if the product is not produced, it is very likely that the price of the seat in advance is priced.

Such as Tesla brand. Before the American electric vehicle brand entered the Chinese market, a local Chinese company registered Tesla trademark. But the company did not use Tesla to carry out any actual business, which is a rush mark. Therefore, the court also made a favorable ruling for Tesla, a car manufacturer, to grant them the right to use Tesla brand in China.

The story of Muji is more similar to that of Jordan. MUJI, a Japanese retailer, went well after entering China in 2005. But when they started selling MUJI bedding, they were taken to court by a Beijing textile company.

The company registered the trademark "Wuyinliangpin" with Pinyin, and considered that MUJI infringed their legitimate rights and interests. MUJI believes that the company has registered malicious trademarks. But because the company has more than a dozen stores selling bedding products in China, there are also related businesses that are in line with its trademark. So at the end of last year, the court made a ruling which was favorable to the plaintiff, which was not conducive to MUJI's ruling.

　 In order to protect trademarks in China, they do so.

With a few cases, you probably know that the trade mark is really not that simple. At any time, it is more than a decade of litigation disputes, brands can not afford to lose, profits can not afford to lose, brand reputation can not be destroyed. Even if it wins, the compensation is mostly low.

The penalty amount for trademark infringement and illegal registered trademarks is not high, and the lack of deterrent force is also the reason for such incidents. After all, in the news report, trademark registration is hot, and thousands of Yuan registration has changed millions of yuan.

For cottage brands, a long period of litigation is enough for them to bake the market and move to the next area. Even if we finally pay the compensation, the profit brought by the consumption of famous brands over the years is more than that. This is also the reason why the Shanzhai brand has been repeatedly banned. The brand protection period is long, and the Shanzhai brand makes money easily.

In order to avoid these unnecessary troubles, it is best to find the agents with rich legal knowledge and professional experience before entering a market to give the correct assessment and prompt, reduce the risk of enterprises and improve the success rate of trademark registration. At the same time, when making registration, you should make preparations as early as possible, not only register your most famous trademarks, but also register similar trademarks and Pinyin, and try not to give other companies the opportunity to "rub".

At this point, foreign brands should learn from some Chinese brands. After all, born in China, the country's brand in China knows more about its consequences.

As far as the Chinese are familiar with Wuliangye, the group has as many as 2064 trademarks. In addition to the Wuliangye we know, there are six grain liquid, seven grain liquid and eight grain liquid. They are not Shanzhai. They are brand names of their own. And Wuliangye did not miss the short names of major provinces in China. It also registered trademarks such as Gan grain liquid, Beijing grain liquid, precious grain liquid and Shanxi grain and liquid.

For Wuliangye, who sold wine for 22 years, the more than 2000 trademark is their cognition and awareness of the market.

Internet giant Alibaba is also unwilling to be outdone in this regard. Because brands are often called "Ali dad", they directly registered an alibaban family without making two stops. Ali baby, aunt Ali, Grandpa Ali, grandma Ali, uncle Ali, uncle Ali...

Millet has also registered the trademark of rice. Considering that they also have the brand of red rice, they simply dyed all kinds of colored rice, and registered "blue rice", "black rice", "Purple Rice", "orange rice", "green rice", "yellow rice" and "orange rice".

The white rabbit and the old mama also have many trademarks. One registered a big gray rabbit, big black rabbit, white rabbit, golden rabbit, Silver Rabbit and other trademarks, and the other one is a trademark such as old father, old godmother and old aunt.

Some shrewd international brands have also registered many brands of their own varieties early in order to avoid touch porcelain. Starbucks has registered dozens of trademarks that may be copied by Sobak, Sinbak, new buck, xingbuck, xingba and so on.

I copy myself, I make myself. In the field of trademark registration, this has become a consistent choice for everyone to protect their trademarks.

In fact, it is a part of corporate trademark protection strategy to complete defensive trademark registration ahead of time. After all, there are only thousands of thieves. Big brands can only defend themselves so that thieves have no access to them.