BJD makers threatened by China-based counterfeiter / trademarks

I'm soooo curious about the chinese docs because it shows the end of 2027/start of 2028 date as if he already won and the trademark was already working till those dates. But no matter how much money I actually have, without an international credit card linked to a paypal account there is no way to pay this damn site...

This is what I found about Iple House one (it seems to be the oldest, thats probably why its open):

Status

• 2018-01-17 Waiting for to issue a document of registration certificate

• 商标注册申请 - 等待注册证发文 - 结束

The adress is again the same used in luodoll usa's process from 2016.
The site doesnt show any attachment to prove its their brand like usa's one, I wonder if its a disponility related issue or if its just that easy to trademark in China.
I was checking the register affiche and the same issue has Mattel trademarking fisher-price and Viacom trademarking MTV, those are some big deals, I'm shook. There is too many pages tough, so whatever, I'm not searching when I cant even read in mandarin.
Anyway, the opposition period was over 2018-06-03, so I guess they have to fille an invalidation process?

 

This might be a silly question, but has anyone tried straight-up writing to the Chinese trademark people and letting them know what's going on? Is there even a way to contact those in charge of approving trademarks? I know it would probably be better if it were the companies themselves contacting the people in charge, but surely even an average person saying something would have them looking at the (many, many) applications a little more critically.

 

I just found out from some ali surfing - cause they have the trademark certificated there in this kimi doll they clam to be theirs, but I dont know the sculpt to be able to tell - that oueneifs actually already has a chinese trademark since 2015, which explain why it is not in 'luo ligui' list, the owner is set as "Taihe Zhongshe Toys Co., Ltd." (which someone said is the name in S/L's paypal receipt) and I REALLY wish someone would pay the dollar worth to see the adress and if it matchs or not the luo ligui ones.

We could make a doc or spreadsheet with links to report so we can all do it for each one.

Dont know about the chinese community (they dont seem to use doa that often since I only saw 2 chinese people commenting here), but I dont think anyone here did. The problem is "who are the chinese trademark people?", while there is a way to contact the chinese trademark site, there is no information about the attorney to be used, I couldnt even find the lawyer like in the usa/eui case. There is what they call "agency" though (Beijing Hua Wei Global International Intellectual Property Agency Co., Ltd.), but I don't really understand which side (the resquester or the judging) they are in.

 

I'm sorry, I might be missing something, but what do these trademarks have to do with the issue at hand? Mattel is the parent company of Fischer-Price, and Viacom likewise for MTV, so there's no similarity at all that I'm seeing, but again, I might be missing something.

 

I am not familiar with the laws and trademark process, but I do know I am furious about the situation.... I have tried to logically analyse what pro-recast people have in their minds when they support the thieves, and only conclusion I have managed to come to is that they have absolutely NO idea about the work that's needed to make a single doll or part, therefore they only see pretty collectables that's too expensive to buy and never search further. Even some re-casters have probably never looked deeper into it than buying and copying dolls, and that's just sad. And positively disgusting.
This Luo guy thought? He was an artist for crying out loud, he ought to have more respect for the art than that... It is so much worse when an artist does it.

I am extremely glad I got into the hobby through places like DoA, and did not fall into the trap of "cheaper products".

 

I just remember reading in an article that money made off of bootlegs went to some... Rather unsavory things. I wonder how true it is. I wonder if that’s true of recasts. What is this guy collecting all those trademarks and money for? So my thought process spirals towards very dark places.

I hope this is resolved with justice for all involved, and if something truly nasty is afoot, that it’s handled accordingly.

 

Oh no, I didnt mean it had something to do with it. I just find interesting that people are like "but they should have trademarked it before" for the bjd companies but hella big brands like fischer-price and mtv where only trademarked recently (2015).

 

"the should've trademarked before" is hard to reasonably argue imo, when "some of the world’s most sophisticated brands and multinational corporations— including Tesla, Pfizer, Apple, and Hermes—have been victims of Chinese trademark squatters." https: //www.akingump.com/images/content/3/5/v2/35819/Is-China-s-Amended-Trademark-Law-a-Law-with-Teeth-or-a-Paper.pdf

Before the 2014 amendment, Chinese trademark law was convoluted at best. It's possible companies didn't think there was a point to act / register? The current state of the law (at least on paper) seems positive, especially with the "good faith" registration requirement. (Art. 7; http: //www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/text.jsp?file_id=425554)

Ditto this win:
https:// www.nytimes.com/2017/04/27/business/new-balance-china-trademark.html

I do hope the bjd companies are successful in getting their TMs back, and recaster found civilly and criminally liable.

 

Let’s not forget about the principle of supporting someone who steals others’ art. It’s about integrity and credibility as much as money.

 

I was feeling like a detetive or something gathering information in those docs but no one seems to want to talk about the legal aspects? You guys are no fun *sulking*

If anyone has one of those great links about china trademark issues that talk specifically about "invalidation" process, I would love to read!

Also, is anyone willing to take the lead for this projects:

The newbie tumblr is already in progress, so the thanks doc/book, the recast toxicity seems not a applicable idea because apparently the recaster in question imports resin, so, yeah, lets leave it to another time. The complaints need someone to list the links that should be reported and create a message we can all agree in send (or is it better to send different ones?), the affordable dolls can be added to doa's wiki as we find new ones, disney font and google search complaints were sent already? And the bjd wikipedia pages need more recast info in the english, french, spanish, deustch, russian, chinese, korean, japan and nederlands pages. Apparently the portuguese page needs some formatation (it shows a wiki-warn for this when we acess) so I will do it now.

I'm also going to send emails/q&a messages to the companies there were affected but not contacted yet. Guess it will be a long night...

[update]
Brands I sent the email:

1. Cocoriang,
2. Darak,
3. DollBom,
4. Doll chateau (not directly affected)
   
5. Doll'n'Doll,
   
6. ID BJD (not directly affected),
7. Leekeworld,
8. Lina Chouchou,
9. Monochrome,
10. Migidoll,
11. Napi,
12. RSDoll.

 

Thanks very much for all you've been doing. As I've stated before I have no experience with posting on Wikipedia, but if someone is willing to take on the English text, maybe some of us can translate it into the other languages? I will happily translate it into Dutch (Nederlands) if someone else can post it.

 

My english is actually quite bad, so I don't think I can help with the english wikipedia page ):

@mangameow I got some answer

Cocoriang:

Island Doll:

[UPDATE]
The 4 trademarks from European Union had their status updated to "Registered", registration date: 07/05/2018, expiry: 12/01/2028 or 13/01/2028 (depending of which)

I dont really know since I'm not used to their page, but I was looking into ali and apparently there is two supposedly stores from luo ligui? The oldest (with 5 years) is now titled "official store" (not sure since when though) and has the chinese trademark brands in their menu while the newest one (with only 1 year) actually has some brands logos there.

 

This leads to a pdf download of a presentation from PRC's SAIC about the process itself: www. ipkey.org/en/resources/download/3869/4094/23

As for articles, I skimmed the first few pages of search results, and it seems most (understandably) don't talk at length about invalidation procedures / proceedings and their recommendation. This is nevertheless an interesting (albeit long) general presentation on global TM/brand management strategy: https: //m.mayerbrown.com/files/Event/a65be6e7-968e-41fe-9528-ce18dcdf7878/Presentation/EventAttachment/03682fe5-9645-4a6b-9245-7c75b742731c/161004-NYC-SEMINAR-IP-Internet-Slides.pdf

 

Thank you for this, they are highly explanatory!
I was expecting to find EU in the second one, but apparently its only about USA and Asia.

I found out that for EU there is a appeal, so basically USA case is still within opposition period, china case has the invalidation as a possibility and EU has the appeal, we lost the battle but not the war.

 

I don't Know if anyone mentioned before, but I think ppl should contact Disney. He as I understand it is trying to trademark his logo, wich have a blue background, white text, a fairy on it AND the disney font. It might not help with the trademarks on all the bjd brands, but if he gets disney on his ass he will probally be more busy. They have the influence to do something, and they would not accept someone trademarking that logo im sure. I dont know chinese laws, so maybe he can do it anyway, but disney should have a trademark in china.

 

^Disney China had already responded awhile ago to this saying Luo is not in violation with Disney with that logo. People in China had already contacted them. (If what I read on Chinese sites about this issue is correct.....)

 

Oh, sad. Weird they didnt care. Oh well

 

Not really weird, they cant own a type font just a logo. But I still had some hope, well, guess we should take disney font complaints out of our plans.

I was also checking google search reports option and they are:

• A page that appears in Google's search results violates my company's trademark rights
• I found content that may violate my copyright
• I've identified defamatory content in Google's search results
• I would like to report a product or service that circumvents a technology protection measure within the meaning of the US Copyright Act (17 USC § 1201)
• I would like to report child sexual abuse images
• I have a problem with AutoFill or Related Search

For the first you need the trademark registered, I guess it would only work for recasts pages that use the brand logo and they are not a lot.
For the second it says:

So we can't do anything about it, only the owner.
The DMCA one seems promising to me, but it also needs to be filled by the right's owner.
So basically we can not do anything to change recasts good position in google search, but I think we should suggest the companies to check with the lawyer they are already paying for the trademark issue about this option.

 

Well its not the font, its the compination of the colors and font, and then the fairy. It looks intentionally misleading to seem like a disney loggo. In fact i thought it was some disney doll brand first time i saw it. But if they cant or are not intrested not much i can say about it.

 

Apparently, it still needs more than that. I'm sure many make misleading logos like that, but if you notice, the "i" doesnt has the dot like Disney's one, the fairies arent in the same positions as Disney's one. You can check one of many disney's trademarks here. Even a famous company like Disney need legal basis and apparently they have none in this case ): Fun fact: Disney owns 4372 trademarks in china. Disheartening, but we can still fight.

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@mangameow told me he is in vacation with his family, so I don't think he will be able to update the companies answer but just registering here that Migidoll answered: