Hylands assists Genius GmbH to protect Intellectual Property rights in China

In 2018, Genius Company has discovered many fake and inferior products using its brand name in many places of the world. In the investigation, it is found that almost all of the fake goods come from China, and many fake online commercial websites and links are available that sell these fake products which cause a serious blow to the goodwill of the Genius Company. When some people got injured by using fake products in Europe, the company determined to investigate and put an end to the fake products network, and thus protect the company’s brand and reputation and the legitimate rights and interests of its customers. The fake goods involved in this case received the ‘Plagiarius Award’ in 2018 from the German Action Plagiarius, which received a lot of attention in domestic and foreign media and brought a bad name to the national reputation. Genius Company then entrusted Hylands Law Firm to defend its intellectual property rights and stop the forgery happening in China.

The project was undertaken by Hylands’ Beijing office. Attorney and partner Jing LIU drafted a proposal for the company to protect its intellectual property rights in China. The relevant works included monitoring the infringement of e-commerce platforms, sending a lawyer’s letter and making platform complaints promptly; setting up an IP portfolio for the client, arranging the client’s existing domestic trademark defense situation, and registering unregistered trademarks and categories on time; protecting the trademark of the client through administrative procedures including trademark objection, cancellation, trademark invalidation, etc.; registering the copyright; recording all trademarks, patents and registered copyrights approved and registered by the client in the Customs system, and conducting Customs training on behalf of the client in Ningbo, Shenzhen, and other places, to introduce the main products, intellectual property rights and methods of distinguishing the true and false products of the client to the Customs officials, especially the front-line inspectors

Furthermore, on the recommendation of the partner and attorney Jing LIU, Genius Company joined the Quality Brand Protection Committee of the China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment (Quality Brand Protection Committee - QBPC) as a member in early 2018. As the company’s representative in the QBPC, attorney Liu Jing had made great efforts to protect the intellectual property rights of Genius Company in China through the platform of QBPC. Thanks to this platform, Genius Company received many opportunities to provide training for the Customs officials as its products were not very familiar in the domestic market and officials were not aware of the forgery happening. This training increased the understanding of Ningbo Customs department to identify the products of Genius Company and easily find fake products while conducting inspections on the front line.

Shortly after the first training, Ningbo Customs could identify several batches of fake goods. The attorney of Genius Company successively filed patent infringement lawsuits in Ningbo Intermediate People’s Court and trademark infringement lawsuits in Beilun District Court of Ningbo City. Finally, with the help of Ningbo Intermediate People’s Court, Ningbo Customs, and QBPC, the fake goods were all destroyed.

Attorneys Jing LIU, Jiapeng DAI, and Xianwei CHEN, agent Chi TIAN, attorney Dong Jingjing DONG, and agent Bojun CHEN of Hylands Law Firm participated in the completion of the project.