A recent decision against the registrant of the domain AirBNBChina.com serves as a reminder of copyright and trademark violations in China.
Intellectual property theft is rampant in China, where trademark registrations by foreign companies must follow the “first to file” Chinese law.
Unlike Western trademark offices, where the filing entity must provide proof of “first use,” the Chinese law leads to IP theft, easily.
According to the China Law Blog, this is the approach that Chinese IP thieves take:
IP theft is rampant in China – Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash
“If your manufacturer in Shenzhen wants to secure “your” trademark in China it will not go off and register it under its name as it knows that cannot work.
So instead of registering the trademark under its own Shenzhen company name, it will ask a cousin or a nephew in Xi’an to register it under its company name, making it nearly impossible for you to invalidate the trademark.
Two, many (most) Chinese factories are hurting and they desperately want to improve their profit margins. What better way to do so than to sell a product under a prestigious or well-known American brand name — or even just any American brand name?”
In the domain world, it’s quite common to receive emails from dubious sources, claiming that they have registered the .CN equivalent of your domain name; quite often, they make a false claim that there is also a pending trademark application.
The moment you respond to these scammers, indicating interest out of panic or ignorance, they jump in and register the domain name with the intent to resell.
For more information on the Chinese trademark theft, read this China Law Blog article.
