Feng Jianxiong pointed to the pile of materials he had just printed out and pointed at the girls:

"You see, this hot sauce trademark of 'l godmother' was used in the mid-to-late 1990s, but it was not a registered trademark in the first two or three years. At that time, l godmother's company in Qiangui Province filed registration applications with the Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce many times, but was rejected by the Trademark Office on the grounds that 'l godmother' is just an ordinary personal title and is not significant'.

Later, it was the end of the last century, because the brand became bigger and counterfeiting gradually began to appear, and the Trademark Office approved the registration application. But because it was not significant, in order to avoid abuse by trademark applicants, only the 30th category was given at that time, namely, "beverage economic crops, rice, flour, cereal products, pastries, cold drinks, condiments, spices..."

The trademarks such as "Seafood Godmom" and "Old Aunt" applied for by Deng Changchun's "Longsheng Food" are used to sell pickled foods, not just "seasonings", so they belong to the 29th category in the "Nice Trademark Classification Table". At the same time, when this trademark was applied for, it was before "L Godmom" became famous, so it was legally used. In other words, even if the "L Godmom" in Qiangui Province is now so famous, Deng Changchun is clearly taking advantage of others' popularity, but as long as the other party has not been officially recognized as "National Famous", Deng Changchun can continue to legally reap. Because as long as a trademark is not "National Famous", it cannot be enjoyed "cross-category protection" or "full-category protection".

Snicker was confused and Zhou Tianyin was embarrassed to ask questions.

However, Feng Yiji had never learned the law and did not embarrass her inability to understand. She asked immediately: "What kind of messy things? The trademarks that others have made are not obvious but are not registered? After registering, they can only be used on a certain type of product? What's this called? National laws are too unprotective and kind!"

Feng Jianxiong didn't laugh at his sister, and still patiently put himself in his shoes and explained to the girls: "Things are not as simple as you think. First of all, the reason why the country restricts the registration of trademarks that are suspected of "not significant" is that it is afraid of unfair competition.

For example, if there is a wine seller today, if he maliciously registers a liquor trademark called "Alcohol Brand", then will no longer emphasize his alcohol attributes in the future? Or it is easy to mislead other consumers to believe that the content of "alcohol" is particularly high in this brand of wine? For example, if a wine seller registers a trademark with a place name, wouldn't it be impossible for other companies to promote their own origins in the future if the origin of other companies overlaps with their brand?

Of course, there are special cases that have been licensed. For example, Moutai is a place name and a "geographical indication" trademark, but the state-owned "Moutai Factory" can be licensed to use the "Moutai" trademark. For example, Hujiang Cigarette Factory produces "Zhonghua Tobacco". In other words, any company now wants to note the "Zhonghua" trademark on other types, it is absolutely impossible for it to succeed. However, "Zhonghua Tobacco" was sold for many years before the "Trademark Law" was legislated, so the agreement was made to handle special matters.

Specifically in this case, ‘l godmother’ is originally a personal name. People in many places have the bad habit of recognizing godmothers. Hot sauce is also homemade in many provinces, so this word is theoretically likely to be confused. In principle, the State Trademark Office restricted its scope of registration and use, which was not wrong in principle."

The three girls had never learned the Trademark Law, and it took more than ten minutes to digest Feng Jianxiong's remarks.

Then the girls asked the next question: "What happened when you said that 'the trademarks are only allowed to be used on a certain category of products after registering a trademark? I heard from the case just now that even trademarks registered on 'seasoning' are not protected on 'pickled food', isn't that too much?"

"This is actually very normal, because the registration of trademarks is too difficult compared to applying for copyrights and patents.

To apply for a copyright, you have to spend at least countless energy on writing a book, a song or a software. To apply for a patent, you have to invest a lot of R&D strength. To apply for a trademark, theoretically, just think about two words and then pay the National Trademark Office 600 yuan fee. This cost is too low.

So if there is no limit, in theory, a person can monopolize tens of thousands of praises by spending millions. By the same token, there is no cap. If someone maliciously spends money, all the beautiful Chinese characters combinations will be used up soon.

Therefore, the "Trademark Law" field of various countries will quote something called "Nice Trademark Classification Table" to divide the products applicable to the trademark (including physical goods and virtual service products) into 45 major categories. Therefore, even if a company registers the trademark "L Godma" to sell seasonings today, it will not affect another company also registers "L Godma" to sell clothes. The day after tomorrow, there will be another company to register "L Godma" to sell cars or software - if this brand of cars and software can be sold."

The girls seem to understand it, but they still think the example just now is not right: "Cars, clothes are far from hot sauce. Even if they are called 'l godmother', it is really impossible for people to misunderstand that 'l godmother', but the gap between chili sauce and pickled food is very close, it is obviously the same thing..."

Feng Jianxiong smiled and shrugged: "There is nothing to do about this - whether it is the same or the same, it is not something that you can judge with common sense of life. The law must be statutory, and whether it is the same category. The only criterion is that the "Nice Product Classification Table" has the final say.

In the "Nice Product Classification Table", the former is in the 30th category and the latter is in the 29th category. At present, the "l godmother" in Qiangui Province is not well-known yet. Taking into account the above points, it is not considered infringement - Deng Changchun is a legal loophole, and it is reasonable to take advantage of it - of course, the premise is that he did not meet me."

After hearing this explanation, Feng Yiji and Zhou Tianyin completely understood.

The last question was Sniker. Perhaps because she had more experience with Feng Jianxiong in doing things, she thought of some operational details, "We all understand the reason why trademarks cannot be protected across categories. But since that godmother in Qiangui Province also knew about this situation at the beginning, why didn't they register all categories 29, 30 and even other categories?"

"It's not that they don't want it, it probably wasn't possible at that time." Feng Jianxiong first concisely raised the core reason.

"First of all, I just said that the Trademark Office thinks this is not significant, so it is definitely 'if you can get less batches, you can get less batches'.

Secondly, even if someone defensively "joint registration" of his trademark in order to protect his brand domineeringly - that is, as you said just now, they also register on other types that he has not yet operated - but as long as there are other companies that actually operate and use the trademark in categories that he does not actually operate, and the company that has registered before cannot prove that he has actually used it. Then the actual user has the right to apply to the State Trademark Office to request that the trademark of the person who has registered before is invalid."

Sniker thought for a while and said pitifully: "Brother Xiong... Your 'secondary' is so profound... Can you translate it in human language?"

Feng Jianxiong sighed helplessly: "Let's use the case just now as an example: Suppose that the genuine L godmother registered the 30th category ‘seasoning’ and the 29th category ‘pickled food’ at the same time, but after the registration, the genuine L godmother company actually did not sell the 'pickled food’, while Deng Changchun's company sold it.

In this case, Deng Changchun could apply to the State Trademark Office to declare that the trademark registered in the 29th category of the local area of ​​the Genuine Brand is invalid. The case is that it is 'malicious registration, and it has been not used for 2 years.'"

"So there are such regulations..." Snicker digested the words just now, "How can ordinary companies prove that they use these trademarks?"

Feng Jianxiong said professionally: "It's very simple. For example, if the genuine LGM company also sells 'LGM' brand pickled seafood. If you find them in financial invoices for sales within two years, you should find the invoices with the 'Pharma brand pickled seafood' written on the 'Pharma brand pickled seafood' invoices written on the 'Pharma brand pickled seafood' invoices. Or you can find advertisements for 'LGM' brand pickled seafood' in newspapers and TV. If these evidences are not left and the competitors sue you for "malicious registration, but it is actually useless after registration", then there is no way."

Snicker and Zhou Tianyin were already listening to the book of heaven, and were impressed by Feng Jianxiong's knowledge.

Feng Yiji, who majored in financial accounting, heard this and was even more distracted for a while and said with emotion: "When you see most companies selling goods and invoices, they don't know how to accurately identify the product brand, just write a type casually. After hearing what you said, even in the daily invoice issuance, there are so many hidden tricks of secretly leaving evidence in trademark protection. I really didn't expect it.

According to your statement, if the genuine L godmother insists on "pretending" to use this trademark in many product categories, it is actually not impossible to do it. I guess even if the actual selling is not "pickled food" but "spicy sauce", as long as the business license has the business scope of "pickled food" and isn't it enough to falsely issue this type of invoices when issuing?

I have seen many tricks in accounting firms. For example, there are government energy-saving subsidies for selling energy-saving lamps in China, but no subsidies for selling non-energy-saving ones. In order to refund taxes, big brands like Philips obviously sell energy-saving products on the subsidy list, and they may be issued as energy-saving products when issuing invoices. Domestic brands like Less are even less honest - it's also a big blame for the genuine brand of L's godmother who didn't ask you to be a legal and brand strategy consultant earlier, otherwise you must have thought of these tricks just now."

Faced with his own sister's "not afraid to use the most sinister malicious speculation", Feng Jianxiong smiled and said nothing, with a "you understand" expression, as if he had thought of it for a long time.

The girls sighed for a while and had no disagreement on basic literacy, so they thought that they hadn't even asked the final core question.

"Then how are you going to deal with Deng Changchun this time? Is it just to help the genuine L godmother company fight against counterfeiting? Then collect some litigation fees for trademark rights protection?" the girls asked in unison.

"Not that simple! This kind of thing is too technical!" Feng Jianxiong said disdainfully, "I said I wanted to 'direct and act myself'. Of course, I had to find a way to ask my godmother to ask her to break through the existing trademark review and review administrative regulations and operate it into a 'nationally famous' title. This title is that many companies that attach importance to brand building are hard to find. At that time, will Deng Changchun, who plays the edge and gets the popularity, be wiped out?"
Chapter completed!