一
On September 29, Chongqing Morning News's "Upstream News" published a report titled "A blank toilet turned into a "TOTO" after one operation, and two men made more than 200,000 yuan in profit." According to reports, the People's Court of Jiangjin District, Chongqing City, recently publicly announced the verdict of a case of counterfeiting registered trademarks in the first instance. The defendants Yan Mouhong and Li Mouguang were both sentenced for producing and selling counterfeit "brand-name" sanitary ware products.
According to reports, in April last year, Yan Mouhong and Li Mouguang, residents of Chaozhou City, Guangdong Province, used low-profile names without obtaining permission from the owners of registered trademarks such as "swe11", "JOM00" and "T0T0" in order to make profits. The blank ceramic sanitary ware products purchased at a low price are marked with well-known brand LOGOs, then packaged in well-known brand product boxes, and sold through online shopping platforms to Yunnan, Hubei, Shanxi and other places. In December of that year, Yan Mouhong and Li Mouguang were arrested by police from the Jiangjin District Public Security Bureau of Chongqing.
The court held that Yan Mouhong and Li Mouguang produced and sold counterfeit registered trademark goods without the permission of the registered trademark owner, and the illegal business amount totaled more than 200,000 yuan, and their behavior constituted a crime.
二
In recent years, well-known ceramic sanitary ware brands have been infringed by counterfeit trademarks one after another, which has not only caused losses to sanitary ware brands such as TOTO, Langjing, and Siwei, but also caused serious harm to ceramic tile brands such as Marco Polo, Jianyi, and Dongpeng.
China Ceramics Network reporter learned from Marco Polo’s official Weibo account:
In May this year, the Xinxing County Market Supervision and Administration Bureau and the County Economic Crime Investigation Team of Yunfu City, Guangdong Province seized a batch of fake Marco Polo tiles at the production site of a ceramic factory in Xinxing County; on September 8, the police arrested 2 people , one person was detained, and the case is still under investigation. In July, Huang from Guangdong Qiantao Sanitary Ware Co., Ltd. was awarded 400,000 yuan by the Chancheng District People's Court of Foshan City for infringing the "Marco Polo" trademark. Also in July, Chaozhou City Chao'an District Taierqi Ceramics Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and its controller Chen Mou were found guilty of producing and selling products containing "Marco Polo" without authorization." sanitary ware products with the words " were ordered to compensate 600,000 yuan. In August, Henan Mingtai Ceramic Products Co., Ltd. and Foshan Shenghao Sanitary Ware Co., Ltd. were ordered to compensate by the Foshan Chancheng District People's Court for producing and selling trademark infringing products. 1.35 million yuan...
Jianyi marble tiles, another well-known ceramic tile brand, is also on the road to cracking down on counterfeiting.
On June 30, the official website of Jianyi showed: On June 18, the Supervision Department of Jianyi received clues from the group’s internal national logistics network system. On June 21, there will be a batch of “Jianyi products” of unknown origin. "Arrived in Shijiazhuang. After receiving the news, the Jianyi Supervision Department immediately arranged for a special person to go to Shijiazhuang for on-site inspection. It is understood that this batch of products are Jianyi brand ceramic tiles purchased by the owner Mr. Wang on Taobao, with a single value of up to 150,000. However, after multiple comparisons and identifications, Jianyi staff found that most of these products were counterfeit, with only a few genuine tiles. Subsequently, Jianyi staff immediately called the police and helped the owner, Mr. Wang, communicate with Taobao counterfeit shops and successfully recovered the payment. In addition, Jianyi has recently cracked down on many cases of counterfeiting and shoddy products, and successfully helped consumers in Changsha, Heze, and Qujing safeguard their rights.
Jianyi staff on-site identification< /p>
三
The above counterfeit trademark infringement cases are just the tip of the iceberg of brand infringement chaos in the ceramic sanitary ware industry, and there are countless cases that have not been reported or reported.
Criminals produce and sell counterfeit products to obtain high profits at low costs, thereby achieving the goal of making money quickly. However,ceramic sanitary ware products have a long service life and the brand logo is not obvious. Consumers need to use them for a period of time before they can find problems. Most consumers will choose to consider themselves unlucky after discovering a problem, because they are unwilling to spend too much time and energy defending their rights, which becomes a natural "protective barrier" for counterfeit manufacturers. Criminals have seized on this point and continue to produce and sell counterfeit ceramic sanitary ware products, which has led to the spread of brand infringement in the ceramic sanitary ware industry and has deeply troubled many well-known ceramic sanitary ware brands.
In the long run, not only the rights of consumersIf the interests are not protected, the reputation and sales of regular well-known brands that have been counterfeited and infringed will be affected, and ultimately the interests of the entire industry will also be harmed.
In order to protect brand reputation and crack down on brand infringements such as "famous brands", "counterfeits" and "copycats" in the market, many ceramic sanitary ware brands actively cooperate with the industrial and commercial and public security departments to crack down on counterfeiting, fundamentally safeguarding consumer rights and interests. Brand market order. For example, Marco Polo Ceramics has established a professional legal team and anti-counterfeiting team, committed to cracking down on brand infringement chaos from criminal, civil, administrative and other levels; Langjing Sanitary Ware sued "Xiamen Langjing" for trademark infringement and unfair competition, and continued to snipe at "Pongjing" "Famous brand" chaos; Jianyi official has solemnly stated many times that, except for Tmall and JD.com Jianyi Tile official flagship stores, it has not authorized any company or individual to sell "Jianyi" marble tile products on any other online platform...< /p>
In the past, the sales channels of ceramic bathroom brands were very traditional, with most of them selling offline and basically not involving e-commerce platforms. However, in recent years, we have found that many ceramic bathroom brands have opened official flagship stores on e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD.com. Analyzing the reasons why they open official flagship stores on e-commerce platforms, there are two main reasons: first, to cater to consumers' gradually accustomed to online shopping habits; second, to combat the endless brand infringement and safeguard brand rights.
It can be seen from the infringement cases mentioned above that many criminals sell counterfeit products through e-commerce platforms. In the past, most ceramic and sanitary ware companies did not pay attention to online sales and did not have formal online brand flagship stores. This gave many criminals an opportunity to take advantage of consumers' online shopping and openly sell counterfeit products. Nowadays, most well-known ceramic bathroom brands have official flagship stores on e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD.com, which has effectively reduced the occurrence of brand infringement cases; as long as consumers do not buy cheap counterfeit products for the sake of petty gains, basically You can buy regular products.
四
On October 7, Taocheng News reported a dispute at the Zibo Ceramics Expo. At the Zibo Ceramics Expo held in early September, Bee e-Home Ceramics reported to the Zibo Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Bureau, complaining that the products displayed by Blue× Enterprise infringed on two appearance patents of Bee e-Home. Immediately, the Zibo Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Bureau launched law enforcement and found that the blue×enterprise displayedAmong the products, there are two mold-type products that are indeed highly similar to Bee e-home.
This case is a typical brand infringement case. Although the serious homogeneity of products in the ceramic industry has been criticized for a long time, I did not expect that this phenomenon would be confirmed in such a large exhibition by one company being complained by another company. It is really sad.
Blue×Enterprise’s above two products were complained of infringement< /span>
In fact, there have been quite a few cases of product design infringement in recent years. On the surface, this shows that there is indeed serious homogeneity in the ceramic industry; but conversely, infringement cases are actually rights protection cases, indicating that more and more ceramic sanitary ware brands are gradually becoming aware of brand innovation and intellectual property rights. importance. They continue to apply for patents for product design, brand trademarks, production processes, etc., and also continue to crack down on trademark infringement, appearance patent infringement and other behaviors, and are gradually building and maintaining a brand intellectual property system. If we persist in the long term, we believe that the ceramic sanitary ware industry will gradually reduce homogeneity, and the circulation of counterfeit products in the market will also decrease. This is of great significance to building a good market order and protecting brand intellectual property rights.
Author: Si Tao
