Raid Action and Trademark Oppossion against Company J, Who Infringed upon a Internationally-renowned Phone Shell Brand
 

Case Brief

Company J sold phone shells counterfeiting a famous phone shell brand (hereinafter “Brand LP”) on Alibaba webstore. Harvesting found its office and warehouse through investigation, reported to AIC and successfully seized 2,000 phone shells counterfeiting Brand LP. Yuan, the infringer, signed the Guarantee Letter on site, promising not to sell counterfeit LP products any longer.
 

Harvesting’s Action

Regarding the infringement act of company J, Harvesting organized the professional customer service personnel to analyze and search its online sale of counterfeits, and targeted the operation company of the webstore. With a consummate investigation network, we soon assigned experienced investigators to conduct on-site investigation against company J, found out its office and warehouse, and mastered its real-time infringement.

During raid, the infringer attempted to muddle through by presenting a Notice of Acceptance of Trademark Application (not trademark certificate) of LP trademark, which once caused doubt and hesitation among the enforcement staff. With high legal accomplishment, our staff immediately pointed out that the Notice merely suggested the application fact but not the trademark ownership. In addition, LP Company has successfully registered LP trademark in similar commodities which has relatively high recognition in public. Therefore, the trademark applied by company J cannot probably be approved registration. We provided powerful legal backup in the raid and facilitated the success of raid eventually.

After raid, we monitored the data of applied trademark of company J and found that the LP trademark applied by company J had unexpectedly passed the preliminary review and announced. Acting as an agent of LP brand, we soon raised opposition to Trademark Review and Adjudication Board.
 

Harvesting’s Perspective

With the development of e-commerce, as well as the difficulty of evidence obtainment and the low cost of violation against law, the online infringement is being out of control. In the meanwhile, some infringers even deliberately conduct preemptive registration of some trademarks which are relatively famous in the world but have not yet been registered in China, or use trademarks similar to the well-known ones. For such cases, only IP companies who are able to integrate team power of investigators, customer service personnel, attorneys and trademark agents, working in cooperation with a due division of labour, can provide high-quality service for trademark owners.