After a brand is registered, it obtains a trademark, which is protected by law and the trademark registrant enjoys exclusive rights. A trademark is the basis for identifying a brand from a legal perspective. The elements of a trademark include text, graphics, letters, numbers, sounds, three-dimensional logos or their combination of colors. Alibaba International Station has set up corresponding rules for trademark protection (please refer to the “Alibaba International Station Intellectual Property Rules”). If a trademark is seriously violated for three times in total, the store will be closed. From the punishment method, it can be seen that this type of violation is very important among the many violations of Alibaba International Station. In practice, few people deliberately use infringing trademark images, but brand word infringement is difficult to prevent. The main reasons are as follows:
(1) A trademark must be registered to take effect. If it is not registered, it will not be protected. If you do not attach importance to intellectual property rights, define the brand name first and then register the trademark, it may happen that the brand name has been registered or preempted. In particular, preemptive registration has a greater impact and may even cause losses to the company.
(2) Trademarks have geographical restrictions. Trademarks registered in mainland China cannot be protected in North America. Recent years have been the golden period for brands to go overseas. One of the preparations before “going overseas” is to register the trademark in the target market.
(3) There are regulations on the effective use of trademarks. Even if a trademark is registered, if it is not used effectively, it may be revoked by others. my country’s Trademark Law stipulates that if a trademark is not used effectively for three consecutive years without justifiable reasons, the registered trademark may be revoked.
Therefore, in the field of cross-border e-commerce, trademark violations and infringements often occur. For example, when releasing a product, we usually use keywords to combine titles, which poses the risk of brand word infringement; it is particularly frustrating that there is no infringement at the time but infringement occurs a few days later. Another e-commerce giant, Amazon, has required that brand trademarks must be submitted when registering new stores in the North American and European markets. Suggestions:
(1) Separate foreign trade salesmen and operations personnel, and assign the responsibility of identifying brands and avoiding brand infringement to operations personnel. Operations personnel should systematically maintain keyword lists, pay close attention to platform rules and trademark search websites, and ensure that the graphics and texts used are not infringing.
(2) Search for trademarks before determining the brand name. Register trademarks before launching a brand.
(3) When registering a trademark, consider variations of the brand name, otherwise it is easy to cause infringement.
(4) When trademark infringement occurs, it must be corrected within the deadline. When trademark infringement occurs, rights must be protected as soon as possible.