Guide: Copyright can be a powerful weapon for coping with preemptive registration.

 

Bried: SOUND AROUND (U.S.) Corporation performs OEM production in China and exports goods to the United States. The main trademark of the corporation, “Pyle pro” and the device P, was preemptively registered by Panshi, a Chinese company. Panshi even applied customs registration for the trademark in question, causing bunches of goods exported by SOUND AROUND (U.S.) to be blocked at customs. Panshi further applied for customs detaining of some of the blocked goods. On behalf of SOUND AROUND (U.S.), we asserted non-infringement before the customs by stating that all the products were produced by OEM production for the mere purpose of exportation, which does not forming use of trademark in China, and providing corresponding evidence, meanwhile applied for revocation of the preemptively registered trademark. We further filed a copyright infringement lawsuit before the court based on the copyright of the device P and won the case in an all-round manner. The trademark preemptively registered by Panshi was revoked. In addition, since the act of preemptive registration and use of the involved trademark was judged as copyright infringement, Panshi assumed reliability of damages of 120 thousand yuan.