Since working on the China IPR SME Helpdesk I have organised and attended scores of events on various intellectual property (IP) topics. Following presentations from legal experts we always allow some time for a question and answer session. The most common question asked by European businesses is a variation of the following question:
“If I have a (insert trade mark or patent) registered in (insert EU country). Is it valid in China?” Continue reading “IPR: A territorial animal” »
[This guest post has been kindly contributed by European small business and China IPR SME Helpdesk user, English Trackers]
In this world of instant gratification, it takes two years to get your registration certificate. That’s pretty long.
As a comparison, it only took me three months to get my Wholly Owned Foreign Enterprise (WOFE) licence (back in 2008). Continue reading “Company logo – why register it in China?” »
We could also have titled this post ‘Three ways to stop your product being ‘old man brand’. Think about your trade mark in China’. These names, ‘Lao Ren Pai’ (老人牌) meaning ‘Old Man Brand’ and ‘San Jiao Ma’ (三脚马), meaning ‘Three-Legged Horse’ are the names Chinese consumers adopted for Quaker Oatmeal and Ralph Lauren respectively. It would be a fairly radical change in marketing tack if these were the connotations that each of these companies were going for… So why did it happen? Continue reading “Three ways not to become a ‘three-legged horse’. Think about your brand name in China” »
Through our Helpdesk Twitter feed we regularly, almost constantly, receive tweets concerning Apple’s involvement in intellectual property rights disputes. This is not big news, almost everyone has heard about Apple and Proview’s legal saga and the millions it eventually cost Apple. What is less well-documented however, are the lessons to be learnt from the situation. It is our wish that Apple learnt the hard way so smaller businesses don’t have to! Continue reading “Top 5 lessons to learn from Apple vs Proview” »