Trademarks & Brands

The Trademark & Brand Legal Affairs Department is one of the core practice departments of Ruitoo Law Firm. It has long been deeply engaged in the field of brand intellectual property legal services and focuses on providing enterprises of all types with full-chain, full-lifecycle, and global one-stop solutions for trademark compliance and rights protection. With years of dedicated practice, the department has served well-known domestic and overseas brands across multiple sectors. It possesses extensive experience in managing large-scale brand legal service projects and professional capabilities in handling complex and difficult cases, comprehensively safeguarding the lawful rights and commercial value of enterprises’ intangible brand assets.

The department has built a full-lifecycle brand protection service system covering front-end brand planning, trademark rights confirmation and consolidation, routine monitoring and early warning, targeted anti-infringement enforcement, and cross-border dispute resolution. It integrates the entire process of trademark compliance management and rights protection, precisely meeting the diverse brand legal needs of enterprises in localized operations and global expansion. In terms of brand planning, taking into account a client’s industry characteristics, business footprint, and development plans, it customizes refined and forward-looking domestic and international trademark registration, class-specific protection, defensive portfolio, and brand compliance solutions, thereby avoiding legal risks at the source, such as trademark conflicts, unprotected brand operation, and bad-faith trademark squatting, and building a solid foundational barrier for brand intellectual property.

In the field of trademark rights confirmation and administrative affairs, the team is proficient in the full range of domestic and international trademark matters, including applications, refusal review, opposition defense, invalidation, defense against three-year non-use cancellation, trademark changes, renewals, assignments, and license recordals. It is skilled at handling various trademark ownership disputes, administrative oppositions, and complex rights confirmation disputes. Relying on professional legal analysis and practical experience, it efficiently secures trademark ownership, consolidates the legal foundation of brand rights, and ensures the stable subsistence of trademark rights.

In the field of brand rights protection and risk control, the department has established a routine trademark monitoring mechanism to achieve all-round monitoring, evidence collection, and handling of trademark infringement, counterfeiting, free-riding, and other illegal acts online and offline, in domestic and overseas markets. For various trademark infringements, it can take targeted enforcement actions through multiple means such as administrative complaints, judicial litigation, and negotiated settlement. It efficiently combats counterfeiting, trademark infringement, unfair competition, and other illegal acts, cleans up market infringement disorder, and maintains brand market order and reputation.

In the field of cross-border brand protection, leveraging its long-accumulated overseas professional cooperation resources, the department handles all overseas trademark matters in collaboration with local senior IP agents and attorneys, ensuring that foreign proceedings are lawful, efficient, and compliant. The team is adept at handling difficult issues such as overseas bad-faith trademark squatting, cross-border trademark ownership disputes, and multinational infringement disputes. It can provide practical cross-border trademark enforcement solutions for going-global enterprises and overseas brand clients, effectively overcoming intellectual property barriers in brand globalization. It also has deep expertise in customs intellectual property protection and is proficient in handling the entire process of disputes involving customs seizure, objection, investigation, and subsequent recovery of trademark-infringing goods, precisely intercepting cross-border infringing goods and building a solid cross-border brand protection defense.

With solid practical experience, the department has accumulated a large number of landmark typical cases in courts at all levels and administrative authorities across China. Multiple cases have been selected as industry model precedents. Its professionalism in handling cases, win rate, and ability to handle difficult cases are widely recognized in the industry. It has long served many leading well-known brands at home and abroad and has in-depth familiarity with brand protection pain points and compliance priorities across industries. It can provide clients with customized, highly actionable brand legal risk management solutions, helping enterprises preserve and increase the value of intangible brand assets and achieve long-term development, and providing solid legal protection for their global brand journey.

Selected Typical Domestic Trademark Rights Confirmation Cases:

·  Domestic trademark registration application case for an automotive powertrain systems company

·  Domestic series trademark registration applications and rights confirmation case for a canned motor pump company

·  Series trademark registration applications and trademark invalidation case for an agricultural machinery manufacturer

·  Trademark refusal review case for a Diantong company

·  Trademark refusal review case for a Jiangsu intelligent technology company

·  Trademark refusal review and administrative litigation case for a Nanjing group company

·  Series trademark opposition cases for a traditional Chinese medicine enterprise

·  Refusal review case for a figurative trademark of a special-purpose vehicle company

·  Trademark refusal review case for a Guangzhou apparel company

·  Trademark refusal review and administrative litigation case in Tongling

·  Trademark refusal review case for a Yiwu trading company

·  Trademark refusal review case for an agricultural machinery trademark

·  Trademark invalidation case for a Zhejiang company

·  Trademark invalidation case for a Nanjing electrical company

Selected Typical Overseas Trademark Rights Confirmation Cases:

·  A Changzhou company: multi-country trademark portfolio covering more than 50 countries across the Americas, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Oceania, building a global trademark protection network

·  A Changzhou company: successfully handled trademark squatting disputes in Palestine, Mexico, Panama, and other jurisdictions, helping the client efficiently recover core trademark rights

·  A Wuhu company: overseas trademark portfolio targeting six key markets—Japan, Brazil, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and the United States—covering major economies

·  A Nanjing company: provided one-stop overseas trademark portfolio services, helping the brand achieve compliant registration and risk prevention in multiple target markets

·  A Jiangsu company: adopted a strategy combining Madrid international registration with national filings in 11 countries in Asia-Pacific and Europe, achieving an optimized balance between cost and efficiency

·  A life sciences company: implemented a global trademark strategic portfolio, comprehensively assessing the importance of trademark signs and registration feasibility, ensuring R&D and market expansion proceed in parallel

·  An environmental technology company: completed EU trademark registration precisely, laying the foundation for entering the European market

·  A Nanjing company: successfully registered a U.S. trademark, strengthening brand exclusivity in the North American market

·  An energy company: completed trademark portfolios in Singapore and Vietnam, securing key Southeast Asian market nodes in advance

·  A clean energy technology company: handled a trademark infringement case in Pakistan, effectively protecting brand rights through legal means

Selected Typical Cases Involving Trademark/Brand Protection, Enforcement, and Unfair Competition:

·  Hua Company v. a Nanjing automobile sales company: trademark infringement and unfair competition case (Jiangsu High People’s Court, in the second instance, recognized it as a well-known trademark entitled to protection)

·  A Nanjing electrical technology company v. a Nanjing auto parts company et al.: trademark infringement and unfair competition dispute (rights protection for China’s first independently developed spark plug brand)

·  A Nanjing construction company v. a Wuxi construction company: copyright infringement involving advertising slogans and unfair competition (selected as one of Nanjing Courts’ Top Ten Cases of Intellectual Property Judicial Protection in 2023)

·  A Hangzhou cosmetics company v. a Linyi cosmetics company et al.: trademark infringement and unfair competition dispute (the first packaging and decoration case under the Anti-Unfair Competition Law for China’s leading Chinese-style color cosmetics brand)

·  A Zhejiang technology company v. a certain company et al.: trademark infringement and unfair competition case (successfully stopped the defendant’s corporate name used since 2011; featured in an exclusive interview by China Intellectual Property News)

·  A Jiangsu vinegar industry company: trademark rights protection and unfair competition case

·  A sporting goods company: trademark infringement and unfair competition case (application of punitive damages + cross-class similarity + full support of RMB 1 million in damages)

·  A Jiangsu technology company: trademark rights protection case (damages of RMB 1 million + traceability-based rights enforcement)