State-owned small and medium-sized hardware lock brands become new targets for infringement of “shanzhai”

Talking about intellectual property rights in Yiwu, most of the past talked about international big names like Nike, Louis Vuitton and Armani. Now, with the development of small commodity companies in Yiwu, the situation is quietly changing.

Not long ago, Yiwu Customs launched the “Enter Customs and Understand Customs Activities” and invited nearly 100 business owners of Yiwu International Trade City to enter the Intellectual Property Protection Exhibition Hall established by the Customs. After the visit, many small commodity operators reported to the customs that their products had been counterfeited.

“Now, when checking for infringing goods, we can often see some 'famous faces' and all of them are state-owned small and medium-sized brands.” From October 26 to 28, in just three days, Lao Li and his colleagues continued to be in the import-export sector. A large number of allegedly infringing locks were seized, involving many domestic self-owned brands such as “ALFA”, “VACHETTE” and “LAPERCHE”. The owners of these brands were SMEs without exception.

According to the customs, there are many foreign trade companies in Yiwu that appear to be small in size but have a reputation. For example, the newly-developed Exploring Hardware Co., Ltd., which was just filed for the record in May of this year, has been registered in over 60 countries around the world. There are more than 20 kinds of patented products and the products are sold in more than 90 countries and regions. After the popularity began, many companies at home and abroad suffered trademark infringement, and local trademarks in Chile were also registered. The company is currently making great efforts to safeguard its rights.

"As of now, we have found that infringement of intellectual property rights of domestic enterprises involves 82 domestic famous brands, and last year it was 63." Wu Yu said.

Protection of intellectual property and anticipation of more participation by enterprises According to statistics, in the first three quarters of this year, the Hangzhou Customs seized a total of 19 million pieces of goods suspected of infringing intellectual property rights. In response to some new features of infringement, the government has made considerable efforts to cultivate enterprises' awareness of independent intellectual property rights while fighting against smuggling and regulating the market order.

There are many private enterprises in Zhejiang, which are widely distributed and small in scale. The sense of self-protection of intellectual property rights, especially the awareness of customs protection of intellectual property rights, is generally not strong. “Customs’ active protection of intellectual property rights is based on the company’s application to the Customs for filing. The company does not register its own intellectual property information with the General Administration of Customs. The Customs’ active protection of intellectual property rights cannot be discussed. However, many companies have made mistakes. I believe that as long as there is a domestic trademark registration, you can sit back and relax.” Wu Hao found in the survey, many foreign trade companies in Zhejiang there is such a "misunderstanding."

Just under the help of the Customs, it has seized 30,000 “ALFA” brand holders of infringing locks, Zhejiang Pujiang Golden Light Lock Co., Ltd., which is a small-scale private enterprise. “In the past, I paid attention to how to build a brand, and I always thought that when the brand became bigger, we would have to consider the protection of intellectual property rights at the level of 'Nike' and 'Adidas' until some locks that mimic the rights of our company appeared in the market. It has caused great trouble for our reputation.” Talking about the infringement of his own product, Jin Xingtu, general manager of the company, felt deeply.

“The protection of intellectual property rights is related to the vital interests of enterprises. Without the active participation of enterprises, the protection of customs is ultimately passive. We look forward to more enterprises participating in the protection of intellectual property rights and take the initiative to come to Customs for the record. Let customs help more self-owned brand enterprises to “protect the umbrella”, export the brand for private enterprises and seize the international market “escort.” Wu Hao said.