Sim xuan "sell fake" Rashomon ushered in a dramatic reversal.
On the evening of April 23, the brand "YPL Sports Trend" that had previously publicly questioned Xinxuan's anchor "Egg Egg" selling fakes changed its attitude in the latest statement, apologizing to Xinxuan and Simba, saying that the two sides had "settled" and turned the "fake sale storm" into a "trademark licensing dispute".
Red Star Capital Bureau noted that this "sale of fake" Rashomon seems to have come to an end, in fact, there are still many questions: whether the YPL sunscreen cool pants sold for 100,000 pieces are real or fake? What is the origin of the "YPL sports trend" that the front foot fakes and the back foot apologizes? From real to fake, and then from fake to real, who should be responsible for consumers?
At the same time, YPL, which claims to be an Australian sports brand, is also full of controversy, and has been questioned by netizens as a "fake foreign brand" that "exports and then sells domestically". Red Star Capital found that the YPL trademark was first registered by a company in Yuxi, Yunnan Province, whose head said it was "sold without use" and later transferred to an Australian company.
Image according to IC photo
Xin Xuan anchors are once again caught in the "fake sale" storm
After the two sides disagreed, there was a dramatic reversal
At 8:00 p.m. on April 23, with the release of the fourth statement of "YPL Sports Fashion Products", Xin Xuan's "fake sale storm" took a dramatic turn.
The statement said: "The trademark licensing dispute involved in this matter has been properly resolved. We apologize for the impact this has had on the relevant companies, the majority of netizens and Mr. Xin Youzhi. It can be seen that YPL Sports Tide has reached a reconciliation with Xin Xuan.
Subsequently, Xin Xuan's official Weibo also forwarded this statement, and the "fake storm" seemed to come to an end.
It is worth mentioning that just 6 hours before the release of this statement, "YPL Sports Tide" also insisted that the authorization letter taken out by Xin Xuan was forged and would be held legally responsible for the forger. Just a few hours later, the "war" between the two sides suddenly subsided, making this "sale of fake" Rashomon more confusing.
Looking back at this "fake sale storm", the cause was a statement from the Weibo account "YPL Sports Trend" on April 22. "YPL Sports Trend Products" publicly questioned a "YPL sunscreen cool pants" sold by Simba's apprentice and Xinxuan anchor egg without official authorization and did not belong to the products of the YPL brand. The statement also revealed that the unit price of the product in the live broadcast room of the egg was 63 yuan, the number of sales exceeded 100,000 pieces, and the amount of illegal sales exceeded 6 million yuan.
After the YPL brand side made a public announcement, the topic #YPL responded to Simba's anchor selling fakes # on the Weibo hot search list.
In the evening, Xinxuan's official Weibo urgent response said that it had launched an emergency verification, and the relevant parties (Harbin Aoshengyuan Trading Co., Ltd., hereinafter referred to as "Aoshengyuan Trading Company") provided it with brand authorization links and written materials, and it was doing further strict verification of the materials.
On the morning of April 23, Xin Xuan's official Weibo issued a second statement saying that after further verification, it was found that the incident was caused by disputes before and after the transfer of the trademark and was not a fake.
About 1 hour later, "YPL Sports Fashion Products" issued a statement for the third time, saying that it had never had any business cooperation with Aussie-Yuan Trading Company and did not have any trademark licensing behavior. The statement pointed out that the power of attorney stamped by Xin Xuan was forged and that the legal responsibility for the forgery would be pursued.
In this way, in just one day, Xin Xuan and the "YPL Sports Trend" issued several statements in a row, making this "fake storm" into a Rashomon with different opinions.
The brand apologized for the front foot of the fake back foot
How to protect the rights and interests of consumers?
Judging from the last statement of "YPL Sports Fashion Products", this "counterfeit sale storm" has turned into a "trademark licensing dispute".
It is worth noting that in the early morning of April 23, "YPL Sports Fashion Products" said in the second statement that the trademark obtained by Aoshengyuan Trading Company was not consistent with the trademark used by the "infringing goods" sold by the egg in the live broadcast room (as shown in the figure below).
However, the Red Star Capital Bureau found that the official website of the State Intellectual Property Office showed that Aussie Yuan Trade registered a YPL trademark as early as August 2019, and its logo form was different from the "YPL Sports Trend" logo form.
The trademarks are different, is the YPL sweatpants sold in the egg live broadcast room of the Xinxuan anchor real or fake?
On April 24, in response to the above questions, Red Star Capital Bureau called Xinxuan Company, and the relevant person in charge said: "This is their brand side's own business. When further questions were asked about consumers in the live broadcast room, the other party declined the interview. The Red Star Capital Bureau searched and found that the Australian Shengyuan Trading Company did not have a valid external contact number, and as of press time, it had not yet been contacted.
According to Xin Xuan's statement, the original holder of the YPL trademark was Australia Health Industry Limited. On January 1, 2021, Aoshengyuan Trading Co., Ltd., which supplies "YPL Sunscreen Cool Pants" to Xinxuan Anchor Egg Egg, was authorized by Australia Health Industry Limited (the former trademark owner) to produce, sell, use and publicize the YPL trademark for a period of January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2026, and the license is transferable.
On April 13 this year, Australia Health Industry Limited transferred the trademark to Australia YPL Limited, and there was already a dispute between the two parties over authorizing a third party to use the trademark before and after the transfer, so the trademark transferee said that the products promoted by the live broadcast room were "not products of the YPL brand".
The brand has reached a settlement with Xinxuan Company, but who is responsible for the YPL sweatpants in the hands of consumers who place orders in the live broadcast room from true to false, from fake to true?
A lawyer at Beijing Yingke (Shanghai) Law Firm told Red Star Capital that the purpose of registering a trademark is to distinguish its own goods or services from those of others, and that in general, the supplier of goods or services is the same entity or controlled by the same controller as the trademark holder.
The original holder of the YPL trademark is the Australian Health Company, which is later transferred to the Australian YPL Company, so does the consumer-recognized YPL goods point to the former or the latter?
For example, the above-mentioned lawyer said that if everyone recognizes a certain brand of mobile phone because of the quality and reputation of the mobile phone company, but its trademark is registered by a small company, and then authorized to another mobile phone manufacturer to produce and sell, then the mobile phone with the trademark on the market cannot be pointed to the brand company, that is, there is no quality endorsement of the brand company. In this case, the consumer can request a refund between the live streams.
It is worth mentioning that Xinxuan Company also said in a statement that if this "storm" has brought a bad experience to consumers, contacting customer service can be fully refunded.
On April 23, People's Daily commented that the matter involved the public interest and also involved legal issues, so the regulatory authorities also had the responsibility to intervene quickly. Deal with it according to law, give consumers a fair way, and give dignity to the law. In recent years, the boom in carrying goods has been quite prosperous, but the problem of carrying goods has emerged in an endless stream, and the regulatory authorities have increased their governance efforts and formed targeted institutional arrangements. The incident in which Simba was involved is more typical and worth analyzing, and it is recommended that the relevant departments give more accurate institutional precautions after handling it according to law, so as not to let similar problems reappear in the live broadcast room.
Nowadays, although the "YPL sports trend" and Xin Xuan have reached a settlement, this "sale of fake" Rashomon still leaves many questions.
YPL questioned "export to domestic sales"
The self-disclosure trademark was transferred after registration by a company in Yunnan
The front foot is fake, the back foot apologizes, and the "YPL sports trend product" has also been questioned by many netizens as taking advantage of the opportunity to speculate.
The company associated with the "YPL Sports Tide" Weibo account is named Hangzhou Sydney Brand Management Co., Ltd., which was established in March 2020 with a registered capital of 5 million yuan, and was renamed Hangzhou LaiduLai Brand Management Co., Ltd. in February this year. Red Star Capital Bureau tried to contact Hangzhou Laidu Brand Management Co., Ltd., but as of press time has not been connected.
Some insiders said that the company is actually a network brand operation company, and it operates a number of network brand products under its name, and YPL is just one of them. According to the Tianyancha APP, Hangzhou Laidu Brand Management Co., Ltd. currently operates 4 official Microblogs of different brands.
According to the official website of YPL, since 2020, YPL has developed online (live) and offline (retail) multi-channels, and Super head anchor Li Jiaqi has listed YPL products in the live broadcast room, and has cooperated with many stars such as Hu Ge and Zhu Yilong. The "Investment Promotion" page has also been placed in a prominent position on the official website.
According to the official website, its sales data is also very eye-catching, YPL annual sales in 2020 reached 600 million yuan (60% in China), of which "Double Eleven" sales alone exceeded 15 million yuan. However, a search by Red Star Capital In its YPL overseas flagship store found that its number of fans was only 60,500, and the highest-selling product had only 300 monthly sales, which was far from the promotion on its official website.
However, an investigation by Red Star Capital found that behind the controversy over the licensing of the YPL trademark, the brand was also questioned.
According to Xin Xuan, the original holder of the YPL trademark was Australia Health Industry Limited. On April 13 this year, Australia Health Industry Limited transferred the trademark to Australia YPL Limited. It can be seen that both the assignment and transferee of the YPL trademark are Australian companies.
Red Star Capital Noted that the YPL official website also claims that it is an "Australian functional sports brand" and "originated in Australia and serves the world". At first glance, the "storm" is a problem of non-agreement on authorization between Australian brands and domestic distributors.
However, judging from the trademark registration book released by the Weibo account "YPL Sports Fashion Products", the YPL trademark was first registered in February 2016 by a company named "Xinping Youzhi Business Co., Ltd." in Yuxi, Yunnan, China, with a trademark number of 15977157 and its logo shape is also consistent with the official website of the YPL brand.
On March 27, 2017, the YPL trademark was transferred from Shin Ping Youzhi Commercial Limited to Australian Health Industry Limited, which is registered in New South Wales, Australia. In other words, the YPL trademark was first registered by a Chinese company and then transferred to an Australian company.
On April 24, Red Star Capital Bureau called Xinping Youzhi Business Co., Ltd., and the person in charge of the other party said that it did register the YPL trademark in 2016, but did not produce related products. When asked why the YPL trademark was transferred to Australia Health Industry Limited, the person in charge replied: "I sold it when I didn't need it." ”
According to the brand development line of the YPL official website, it does not show the founding time of the brand, and can only see the words "2018 YPL annual single product sales exceeded 8 million, and annual sales were 380 million".
In 2018, it happened that Xinping Youzhi Commercial Co., Ltd. in Yuxi, Yunnan Province, transferred its trademark to Australia Health Industry Co., Ltd.
According to Times Finance, also in 2018, the YPL brand was also questioned by some consumers because of excessive marketing traces. A consumer who has been living in Australia for many years has posted that he is very disgusted by the brand's overwhelming soft text publicity, saying that the gimmick of "popular australia" is actually "popular in the Australian Chinese purchasing circle", and it is more suspicious that this is an "export to domestic sales" company.
Red Star News reporter Yu Yao Qiang Ya Milling
Responsible editor Ren Zhijiang