Fachartikel in Kommunikation und Recht, 3/2017, E-Commerce in China

Managing Counsel Daniel Albrecht gibt einen kompletten rechtlichen Überblick über den Chinesischen E-Commerce Markt in China.

Den kompletten Artikel finden Sie unter:

E-Commerce in China – Facts and Law Regulations, Daniel Albrecht (Managing Counsel of Starke);
Kommunikation und Recht, 3/2017, Beihefter 1/2017, dfv Mediengruppe, Frankfurt am Main;

Den kompletten Artikel können Sie hier downloaden: http://online.ruw.de/suche/kur/

Aus dem Artikel:

"Despite the impressive and projected growth of e-commerce in China it is important to remember that channels of commerce such as Tmall Global provide counterfeiters with an opportunity to flourish and the potential to destroy the market with fake goods. The EU has seen a significant rise in counterfeited goods in recent years and China continues to be the main source country for shipping IPR infringing goods, accounting for 80% of all seized goods in 2014, even if China filed 3.69 million trademark applications in 2016, up 28.4 percent over 2015, and continues to top global trademark application.For many reasons it is important that adequate intellectual property protection is provided but principally for the protection of consumers as badly manufactured food or medicine could kill people. The increase in infringement in recent time correlates with the rise in e-commerce and focus should thus revolve around anti-online counterfeiting, making it easier for right holders to notice and take down counterfeited products from e-commerce platforms both in China and the EU.

With regards to trademarking, some foreign companies are still under the assumption that because they have registered their trademark in their country of origin, it will be protected in China-this is not the case. China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce (中国国家工商行政管理总局(工商局) AIC) does not recognize trademark registration overseas and instead has a‘first to fly’system. This system sees rights to a trademark awarded to the first party to apply, rather than the first year to use it, even if the trademark is already registered in other countries. Subsequently the problem of ‘trademark squatting’is very common in China and companies should register under a Chinese domain name instead. For more detailed information on IPRs and trademarking please see our Intellectual Property brochure.

If e-commerce platforms were to have stringent rules and regulations regarding intellectual property right misconduct with subsequent penalties and fees attached, this illegal yet admittedly profitable business may stand a chance of being stopped. Currently Chinese law dictates that e-commerce platforms must take down links infringing products on their websites if they are notified by the products IPR holder and a take-down action is requested by them. If they fail to do this then the platform would be liable for infringement under Chinese law."