The squatting trademark registration behavior of rubbing traffic not only disrupts the market order, but also damages the legitimate rights and interests of the Olympic Committee and related athletes.
Relevant departments should take the initiative to severely punish such malicious registration behavior, make speculators pay the price, and use modern technology to establish a database to effectively screen squatting behaviors and directly reject relevant registrations.
Relevant industry associations or sports organizations should take active actions to help and guide Olympic athletes and other well-known figures to register relevant trademarks.
■Shi Hongju
On February 14, the State Intellectual Property Office issued a notice to crack down on malicious squatting of trademarks such as "Bingdundun" and "Gu Ailing" in accordance with the law.
429 trademark registration applications such as "Bingdundun" and "Gu Ailing" were rejected, and 43 registered trademarks including "Xuedundun" and "Gu Ailing" were declared invalid ex officio.
(According to a report by China Consumer News on February 14)
Having a well-known and well-known trademark will naturally bring certain reputation and sales to its own products.
The Olympic athletes who won the Olympic Games have attracted much public attention, and their names themselves have a strong focus and eye-catching effect, which can bring huge traffic and attention.
If its name is used as a trademark, it is obviously its own advertising effect.
But this does not mean that people can arbitrarily register celebrity trademarks and produce and sell related products.
According to the Trademark Law, the application for registration and use of a trademark shall follow the principle of good faith.
The trademark user shall be responsible for the quality of the goods on which it uses the trademark.
The trademark applied for registration must not conflict with the legal rights previously acquired by others.
Signs that are deceptive, easily make the public misunderstand the quality and other characteristics of the goods or the place of origin, or are harmful to socialist morality or have other adverse effects shall not be used as trademarks.
In addition, the "Trademark Law" also stipulates that a malicious trademark registration application that is not intended for use shall be rejected.
If a registered trademark meets certain circumstances, the Trademark Office shall declare the registered trademark invalid; other units or individuals may request the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board to declare the registered trademark invalid.
Those who apply for trademark registration in bad faith shall be given administrative punishments such as warnings and fines according to the circumstances; and those who file trademark lawsuits in bad faith shall be punished by the people's court in accordance with the law.
It can be seen from the above that squatting the names of others, especially those with a certain reputation and influence, as a trademark is basically a waste of money, and it is impossible to obtain any benefits.
But unfortunately, there are still people who are lucky enough to seek undue gains through cybersquatting.
According to the "Regulations of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Trial of Administrative Cases Concerning the Granting and Confirmation of Trademark Rights", applying for the registration of names of public figures in the fields of politics, economy, culture, religion, ethnicity, etc. as trademarks is an act that will cause "other adverse effects" .
If the parties claim that the trademark in dispute damages their right to name, if the relevant public believes that the trademark sign refers to the natural person, and it is easy to think that the goods marked with the trademark are licensed by the natural person or have a specific connection with the natural person, the people's court shall determine that the The trademark damages the natural person's right to name.
That is to say, no matter what kind of squatting behavior, this kind of traffic rubbing speculation will not gain any profit.
Relevant departments should take active actions against such behaviors. First, severely punish such malicious registration behavior and make speculators pay the price; second, use modern technology to establish a database to effectively screen squatting behaviors and directly reject relevant registrations.
Of course, relevant industry associations or sports organizations should take active actions to help and guide well-known figures such as Olympic athletes to register relevant trademarks, so as to avoid being squatted, so that well-known figures such as Olympic athletes can compete with peace of mind and stop worrying about dealing with malicious squatting.