"Ding Zhen" and other trademarks are frequently registered and hoarded in bad faith.

  Huawei’s core chips were preemptively registered by partners, causing controversy and lawsuits; Toutiao sued "Today You Tiao" for famous brands; suddenly popular teenager Ding Zhen was "snatched" by trademark squatters... Recently, news in the trademark field has been hotly searched , Wave after wave of "free-riding" and "near famous brand" news has attracted widespread attention.

  "The current phenomenon of trademark cybersquatting has gone against the original meaning of trademarks." Ma Dongxiao, a well-known intellectual property lawyer, told Peng Mei News (www.thepaper.cn), "Trademark registration is for use, not for speculation." It is the direction established by the revision of the Trademark Law in 2019, "The value of a trademark lies in its use, and a consensus should be formed in all sectors of society."

  The Paper noted that the State Intellectual Property Office has recently responded and deployed its work in response to trademark squatting and hoarding that readers and netizens are concerned about. It has been paying close attention to and strengthening rectification, and will further strengthen the crackdown on malicious squatting of trademarks. Intensity.

The Trademark Office of the State Intellectual Property Office also stated that the next step will be to concentrate on review, further shorten the trademark review cycle, improve the quality of trademark review, and severely crack down on malicious registration and hoarding of trademarks. At the same time, it will improve the trademark review system and improve the standardization, standardization and rule of law in trademark work.化 level.

"Trademark hooligans" wantonly and harm the digital economy

  On December 5, the data released by the 12th China International Trademark and Brand Festival showed that from January to October this year, the number of trademark applications in my country was 7.568 million and the number of trademark registrations was 4.645 million.

As of the end of October this year, the number of valid registered trademarks in my country was 29.182 million, ranking first in the world for many years.

  However, behind the soaring number of trademarks, the problem of malicious squatting and hoarding of trademarks has been around for a long time and is difficult to cure. It has become more and more serious in recent years.

  In September of this year, Shaolin Temple applied for the registration of 666 trademarks, which also contained alcohol-related trademarks, which raised concerns about different trademark review standards.

Today’s Toutiao sued “Today You Tiao” for infringement. Huawei’s core chip mobile computing architecture “HiAI” was preemptively registered by its partners, triggering a trademark battle that lasted for several years. Behind it is the common pain of many companies, that is, the trademark encounters. Free-riding rush betting is not uncommon.

  Recently, young people Ding Zhen and Ma Baoguo, who have suddenly become popular, have been "snatched up" by trademark squatters, and hundreds of applications have been registered.

An unannounced visit by The Paper found that behind the chaos of trademark applications following the trend of Internet celebrities and hot words, the speculation of trademarks was also "undercurrent". A company in Hunan that applied for the "Ding Zhen" trademark had not issued a trademark certificate, so it offered a price of 188,000. Yuan; a company in Zhengzhou just applied for the "rats tail juice" trademark, and said it can be authorized for use at a price of 10,000 yuan per year.

  “The gray industrial chain of malicious squatting of trademarks continues to refurbish its routines. It is spreading to the emerging Internet industry and the digital economy, seriously disrupting business order.” According to relevant intellectual property experts, after the cyber celebrity’s name was registered, the cyber squatters Red demanding license fees or coercing to purchase trademarks at high prices have been common in similar cases and urgently require strict management.

  For example, after the name of Jing Hanqing, the owner of 9 million fans of the Internet celebrity up at station B, was registered as a trademark by a company, he was asked to stop using the name and threatened to contact various platforms for banning; the Kuaishou 10 million fan user "Mama Liu" was Shandong Jiuyantang Trading Co., Ltd. preemptively registered and asked "Mama Liu" for a loss of 2 million yuan.

In the end, the aforementioned pre-registered trademarks were declared invalid.

  The sudden malicious cybersquatting storm has left many self-media creators exhausted, and the platform economy is also injured.

In an interview with the media, the person in charge of relevant operations of station B said that the platform has invested a lot in human and material resources for self-media creators, and similar malicious cybersquatting has caused great harm to creators and the entire creative ecology.

  According to a report by the Rule of Law Daily, a company in Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province, after preemptively registering the term "self-defense" as a trademark, complained to hundreds of sex toy online stores in batches, threatening to "withdraw the lawsuit, give five thousand", and the complainant had applied for registration of more than 100 such as "DIESEL" and other major foreign brands and e-commerce sellers commonly used commodity description vocabulary.

Fortunately, the State Intellectual Property Office believed that the company maliciously registered trademarks, disrupted the normal order of trademark registration and management, and declared the "self-defense" trademark invalid.

  But such cybersquatting is not an isolated phenomenon.

According to media reports, some people preemptively registered common words such as "holes" and "hula hoops" as trademarks, and complained to countless e-commerce sellers of "hole jeans" and "hula hoops" in an attempt to blackmail high licensing fees and withdrawal fees.

"Malicious trademarks" are raging and have formed a black industrial chain.

Trademarks are not used for speculation, and the State Intellectual Property Bureau deploys to crack down on malicious cybersquatting

  "The current signs of trademark preemptive registration and hoarding have run counter to the original meaning of trademarks." The relevant intellectual property expert told reporters that "trademark registration is for use, not for speculation" is the direction established by the new trademark law. , "The value of a trademark lies in its use and a consensus should be formed in all sectors of society."

  Intellectual property experts believe that the influx of a large number of disputed trademarks into the market will also adversely affect business order and even cause social problems.

Xinhua News Agency’s "Xinhua Daily Telegraph" published a commentary stating that the trademark review department must ensure the "access" of trademarks, and trademark review methods and standards should be more unified to avoid randomization, subjectivity, and ambiguity; specific review procedures It also needs to be more standardized, standard, and transparent.

  Red net review articles believe that when cybersquatting becomes a market trend, merchants rush to use joking hot words to attract temporary popularity, and use traffic as a secret to their own business. This is a short-sighted behavior that seeks quick success and blindly follows the trend and is also a form of traffic flow. The morbidity of the fever should be corrected and corrected. The market supervision department should focus on monitoring such incidents, check the qualifications of trademark application enterprises, and maintain a reasonable and orderly market environment.

  According to the official website of the Trademark Office of the State Intellectual Property Office, on the morning of December 4th, the Party Committee of the Trademark Office held an enlarged meeting of the theoretical study center group, emphasizing the combination of trademark work to focus on the main responsibility and main business, focusing on examination, further shortening the trademark examination cycle and improving trademark examination Quality, severely crack down on malicious registration and hoarding of trademarks; focus on improving quality and efficiency, focusing on reforms, further strengthening the top-level design, improving the trademark review system, and improving the standardization, standardization and legalization of trademark work.

  On the afternoon of December 7, the Standing Committee of the Party Committee of the Trademark Office convened a meeting to reiterate the focus on the main responsibility of trademark examination, continue to deepen the reform of trademark registration facilitation, improve the quality and efficiency of trademark examination, and crack down on malicious registration and hoarding of trademarks. Implement precise reform of trademarks and contribute to strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights and promoting the building of an intellectual property power.

  The Paper noted that, in response to netizens’ complaints and suggestions on trademark cybersquatting, reselling and hoarding, on December 7, the State Intellectual Property Office successively responded to the “Leadership Message Board” column of People’s Daily Online.

  In the "Leadership Message Board" column of People's Daily Online, some netizens reported that the problem of "professional cybersquatting or malicious registration or reselling and hoarding" is becoming more and more serious. It is suggested that the trademark office review should start with the trademark transfer process and add relevant measures and regulations; some netizens left a message saying that there is a trademark The agency seeks to make profit by registering trademarks, hoping to "take measures to solve the problem of trademark registration."

  "The State Intellectual Property Office has always been paying close attention to and strengthening rectification." In response to the questions raised by netizens, the State Intellectual Property Office replied that on the one hand, it actively promotes the improvement of my country's trademark laws and regulations, and on the other hand, it incorporates such issues into the intellectual property agency industry. The "Blue Sky" special rectification action has focused on rectifying the malicious squatting of trademarks by trademark agents.

In the next step, the State Intellectual Property Office will further strengthen its crackdown on malicious squatting of trademarks by trademark agents. At the same time, it will continue to strengthen publicity to enhance corporate trademark protection awareness and create a good intellectual property protection environment for enterprises.

  The State Intellectual Property Office stated that it will earnestly implement the newly revised "Trademark Law" and the "Regulations Regarding Trademark Registration Acts", formulate relevant review procedures, and issue "Guidelines for the Review of Malicious Trademark Registration Applications Not for Use" , To further refine the specific application circumstances and identification factors of Article 4 of the Trademark Law "Malicious trademark registration applications not intended for use shall be rejected", and effectively combat malicious registration and hoarding of trademarks during the review stage. The purpose of malicious registration application for trademarks.

  Tan Jun, chief reporter of The Paper