For foreign companies wishing to sell goods or provide services in China, Chinese trademarks are as important as foreign language trademarks, and even more important.
Some small companies ignore or refuse to register Chinese trademarks due to difficulties in unifying Chinese and foreign trademarks or translation difficulties.
This article discusses the reasons for the need to register a Chinese trademark.
1. In the Chinese market, Chinese is easier to remember and accept from the public and customers.
For Chinese audiences, non-native speakers are written in Latin, which is different from Chinese writing and pronunciation. The Chinese public needs more time to familiarize and remember. Therefore, the promotion of foreign language trademarks requires more time and money.
2. For a foreign language trademark, if there is a corresponding Chinese name, the Chinese public will subconsciously give it a Chinese name
Ralph Lauren is a brand that decided not to register a Chinese trademark, which led the Chinese public to name it itself: “三脚马”, which means “three-legged horse.” This is very embarrassing.
Once brand recognition is established in the consumer group, it is difficult to change.
3. Chinese trademark is a pre-application system, if your company does not register the Chinese version of the trademark, others may register
China adopts the trademark first application system.
If the Chinese trademark corresponding to the foreign language trademark is not selected quickly enough, distributors, manufacturers, customers or others may choose a Chinese name and register it first, so that the company’s original trademark is marketed in China And promotion will encounter problems.
The number of trademark applications in China is huge, and the number of trademark applications in 2020 is 8.784 million.
Therefore, the difficulty of considering a suitable Chinese trademark name is increasing. The longer the Chinese trademark registration is delayed, the fewer choices and the more obstacles encountered. .
4. In China, the localized trademark of the Latin alphabet is necessary
All well-known international brands have Chinese trademarks in China, such as IKEA (宜家), Carrefour (家乐福) and Google (谷歌).
Overseas merchants do not need to add these Chinese trademarks to products or service providers with uniform global labels, but they need to use these Chinese trademarks when selling and promoting in the Chinese market in order to make customers and the public have an impression and a positive impression of the brand.
5. Not only to register Chinese trademarks, but also to consider the issue of simplified and traditional Chinese trademarks
Since “無印良品” was born in Japan in 1980, Liangpin Co., Ltd. Plans to open stores around the world, including Japan, and register the trademarks “無印良品” and “MUJI”.
Within the scope of mainland China, Liangpin Project Co., Ltd. Has registered the “無印良品” trademark on almost all categories of goods and services, but for a part of the product categories such as cloth, towels, and bedspreads, other companies have preemptively registered “无印良品” trademark.
The trademark caused a dispute, and the court finally ruled that Liangpin Project Co., Ltd. and MUJI (Shanghai) Commercial Co., Ltd. could not use the “無印良品” trademark for these products in mainland China.
This is because Japan’s MUJI failed to lay out its registered trademarks in advance before entering the Chinese market, resulting in China’s “无印良品” trademark being registered by others in some categories.
