A few days ago, the Shanghai Songjiang District Intellectual Property Office filed a case against a trademark agency within its jurisdiction and six registered trademark applicants who were represented by it for hoarding registered trademarks for transfer profits.
This case is the first case of this type in Shanghai, and through the investigation and handling of the case, it has played a certain deterrent and warning effect on the illegal acts of trademark agencies, and also revealed that Shanghai regards strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights as an important resource for building strategic advantages and deepening the construction of science and technology innovation centers.
(Source network, the same below)
It is understood that since the Songjiang District Market Supervision Bureau (District Intellectual Property Office) launched the "Blue Sky" special rectification action, it has severely cracked down on malicious trademark application agency behavior that is not for the purpose of use, continuously improved the order of the intellectual property agency industry, and guided intellectual property agencies to better serve the high-quality development of the economy.
Not long ago, the Songjiang District Market Supervision Bureau (INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY Office) received a tip from the Shanghai Municipal Intellectual Property Office to the State Bureau, reflecting that an intellectual property agency in Songjiang District had colluded with its affiliated company to apply in bad faith for the purpose of using the registered trademark and resell it for profit, requesting investigation and handling.
After the Songjiang District Market Supervision Bureau set up a special team to investigate, it accurately targeted the trademark agency and its 6 registered trademark applicants, as well as the core figures of the trademark agency company.
After investigation, since 2018, the legal representative of the trademark agency has used the profits from the trademark transfer to become the reason, in his own name and persuaded relatives and friends to register 6 companies one after another, and he is solely responsible for applying for the registration of trademarks. None of the six companies have carried out actual business activities since their inception. The agency applied for a large number of registered trademarks without using the above 6 companies as applicants, and contacted third parties through the trademark trading platform, WeChat group, QQ group, etc., to transfer the registered trademarks under the names of the 6 companies for profit. From November 1, 2019 to the occurrence of the case, the trademark agency has applied for more than 1,000 trademarks for the above six companies, and has successfully transferred or is in the process of transferring more than 30 trademarks.
The Songjiang District Market Supervision Bureau found that the trademark agency accepted the entrustment to apply for the registration of the trademark and transfer it without knowing that there was a bad faith trademark registration application for the purpose of use, which violated the provisions of Article 19, Paragraph 3 of the Trademark Law, and ordered it to immediately correct the illegal behavior, and gave it a warning, confiscated the illegal gains, and fined it RMB60,000. Since its establishment, the six companies have not applied for trademark registration in bad faith for the purpose of use, which violates the provisions of Article 4, Paragraph 1 of the Trademark Law and Article 3, Paragraph (1) of the Several Provisions on Regulating the Application for Registration of Trademarks, and imposes administrative penalties of warning, confiscation of illegal gains and fines respectively, depending on the seriousness of the circumstances. The legal representative of the trademark agency and the main leader of the malicious trademark application for registration was investigated in a separate case, and in accordance with the provisions of Article 68, Paragraph 1,(3) of the Trademark Law, a warning was given and a fine of RMB 30,000 was imposed.
At the same time, the case also filed and investigated trademark agencies and trademark applicants for malicious agency and application for registered trademarks, and strictly implemented the "double penalty system" of "punishment to people", which not only deterred enterprises and individuals from malicious registration and hoarding of trademarks, but also helped to further advocate trademark applications for the purpose of use, maintain a good trademark registration order, and help the healthy development of trademark brands in the mainland.