Beijing, 4 Apr (ZXS) -- Zheng Yuanjie "admitted defeat."
Zheng Yuanjie, a well-known fairy tale writer, recently posted on the Internet platform that "I lost confidence in trademark rights protection". After 21 years of defending his rights, he decided to "throw in the towel". At the same time, the novels written were no longer published.
The events that triggered this statement stemmed from his lawsuits in 2022 for trademark infringement by "Germany's wholly-owned 'Schuck (Shanghai) Pipeline Equipment Service Co., Ltd." and "Suzhou Gas Equipment Valve Manufacturing Co., Ltd." The word "Shuk" is the name of a well-known fairy tale character originally created by Zheng Yuanjie in 1982. According to Suzhou Gas Equipment Valve Manufacturing Co., Ltd., the reason for the registered use of the trademark "Shook" was that the German name of the founder of its German partner company was Schuck. Zheng Yuanjie believes that there are many ways to translate foreign languages into Chinese, and when translated into Chinese for commercial purposes, the names of well-known literary characters that have a huge impact on Chinese originals should be avoided. In February, China's State Intellectual Property Office rejected his application.
According to Zheng Yuanjie, since 2002, only 21 trademarks have been successfully protected in 37 years, and 673 infringing trademarks have not yet been successfully protected. In 1981 and 1982, he created well-known literary characters such as Pipiru, Lusisi, Shuke, and Beta, which accompanied the five generations of readers from the "post-70s" to the "post-10s" in China, with a circulation of more than 3 million copies of related books and periodicals, and in 2021 alone, he paid more than 1000 million yuan (RMB, the same below) in personal income tax.
Nor is this the first time he has adopted the form of a "sealed pen". In December 2021, Zheng Yuanjie announced that she would suspend the publication of "Fairy Tale King", which had been published continuously for 12 years, due to "difficulties in defending rights". At the time, he said that "he had limited energy, so he had to stop writing in order to spend more energy on trademark rights protection in bad faith" and that "it will not be republished until all trademark rights protection is successful". So far, "Fairy Tale King" is still in a suspended state.
So, did Zheng Yuanjie really lose?
Leaving aside the 37 trademarks he has successfully defended. In 2019 alone, Zheng Yuanjie reported to the office of China's national "anti-pornography and anti-illegal activities" working group that an online store was selling his pirated books, and the relevant departments quickly carried out surprise inspections, and finally 11 defendants were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from one to four years, and imposed personal fines totaling 1.4 million yuan.
At the same time, Zheng Yuanjie also revealed that the Supreme People's Court of China contacted him a few days ago, "listened to my opinions and suggestions on trademark rights protection, and reiterated that the Supreme People's Court attaches importance to protecting the prior rights and interests of well-known literary characters in the trademark field and intellectual property rights." "The Supreme People's Court took the initiative to contact me, which is something I have never encountered in my 21 years of trademark rights protection." For the first time, I was very encouraged. ”
In fact, after Zheng Yuanjie made a "admit defeat" remark, some netizens also voiced doubts, believing that the category of rights protection trademark he claimed exceeded a reasonable range, and the pipe, toilet, etc. were completely irrelevant to fairy tales, and Zheng Yuanjie was somewhat "overly protected rights" this time.
Yang Zhenzhong, a senior partner at Beijing Jincheng Tongda & Neal Law Firm, said in an interview with China News Agency that the problem reflected in the incident is a huge gap between China's current trademark authorization and confirmation system and the subjective expectations of the parties. From the emotional perspective of the parties, they usually cherish their own creations, and once it happens that others use these words to apply for trademarks, the right holder is angry and hopes to protect its rights with the simplest procedure and the lowest cost.
"However, the current trademark authorization and confirmation system in our country is a system with strict procedures and a balance between right holders, stakeholders and public interests. When hearing such trademark cases, judges need to fully consider whether the trademarks are similar, whether the goods are similar, whether there is a possibility of confusion among consumers, and the multiple sources of words contained in the trademark logo. Yang Zhenzhong said.
He pointed out that for a Chinese term that is not very original or has diversified sources, courts usually use "merchandising rights" to protect the whole category, because this not only affects the trademark rights and interests of others, but also allows the right holder to monopolize the Chinese terms in disguise, which is a great restriction on the subsequent use of the term in the commercial field and will seriously affect the public interest. In Zheng Yuanjie's case, although he is dissatisfied with the current status quo of rights protection, perhaps the result of this dissatisfaction reflects that the judge has strictly applied the current law. This expectation of surpassing the current law may only look forward to the next revision of the relevant law. (End)