International Law

Wangzhihe Trademark Case: More Media Sins

By Stan

I was a bit critical last week regarding the Financial Times’s reporting on the Wangzhihe trademark case in Germany. My problem was their suggestion that cases of IP infringement between two Chinese companies was somehow a new development (it isn’t).

Here’s a quick summary of the facts as reported by the People’s Daily following the verdict in Bavaria in favor of the plaintiff:

In 2006, the Wangzhihe Food Group Company found its “Wangzhihe” trademark and logos were pirated by Okai when it intended to apply for registration at the German trademark registration administration.

In January 2007, Wangzhihe filed a lawsuit against Okai to a local court in Munich over trademark piracy. In November 2007, the first ruling by the court ordered Okai to stop pirating, which some media dubbed as the first case for Chinese company has ever won in protecting intellectual property rights overseas.

Note that last part, where the writer of the piece, in discussing whether the case was a matter of first instance, noted that “some media” reported the case as the first where a Chinese company has enforced its IP rights overseas.

I think that the use of “some media” was a slight dig at some of the reporting out there. It is very common for reporters to pronounce cases as a matter of first instance. This probably stems from publicity-hungry plaintiff’s attorneys trumpeting about how important their case is, or perhaps the reporters are looking for a way to make otherwise boring IP stories a bit more interesting by hyping them way out of proportion.

I would be utterly shocked if this trademark case was the first instance of anything. There are a lot of Chinese companies doing business overseas, they have been doing so for decades, and there is really no question about their having enforced their IP rights on multiple occasions. Do I have an example for you? Absolutely not — I’m not getting paid for this, don’t expect too much.

Finally, and perhaps the reason why I am jumping into another discussion of this case, I was perplexed with an opinion piece in Xinhua on the Wangzhihe court verdict. Here’s the headline:

“Wangzhihe” Case Boosts Chinese Companies’ Morale

The article itself is pretty tame, but this headline is really annoying. Remember that this is a case of a Chinese company enforcing its IPR in a German court, so I’m assuming that we are talking about Chinese companies operating overseas.

I further assume from that headline that if the case boosted the morale of Chinese companies, it stands to reason that they are experiencing morale problems now. Moreover, since the topic is about IP enforcement, and the article does not mention any other problems that Chinese companies operating overseas are having, that suggests the root of the morale problem is IP enforcement.

So essentially the headline writer is saying that this verdict, a positive one for a Chinese company overseas, was somehow a departure from past practices, buoying the spirits of Chinese companies that, I don’t know, had been receiving poor treatment from foreign courts in the enforcement of their IPR. Can that be right?

OK, I’m obsessing over this. Probably just a sloppy editor. But I think somewhere along the line, perhaps subconsciously, there was some nationalistic projection going on here. China’s IPR system has been tough for foreigners, so perhaps this person assumed that the same was true for Chinese companies abroad.

I think it’s rather common knowledge that the most significant IP problem facing Chinese companies abroad is actually availing themselves of legal representation and using the system in the first place.

Although I am not an expert on the German IP regime, I have a feeling that local protectionism, corruption, forum shopping, limited damage awards, restrictions in evidence collection and inter-governmental squabbling (to name a few issues) are not nearly as troublesome in Bavaria as they are here in China. (And this despite the amazing progress we’ve seen over here in the past few years.)

So I think it’s more than a little unfair to naturally assume that the Wangzhihe case is some sort of breakthrough for Chinese companies overseas who have been somehow oppressed by the German legal system.

Or maybe I’m reading into that headline a bit too much on a slow news day.

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Full post as published by China Hearsay on April 27, 2009 (boomark / email).