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15 February 2022TrademarksAlex Baldwin

China tackles rogue Olympic IP filings targeting Eileen Gu

The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) has unveiled a plan to crack down on bogus trademark filings that infringe on the rights of Olympic athletes, including the skiing champion and fashion model Eileen Gu.

In an announcement made Monday, February 14, the agency said that malicious filings looking to capitalise on the 2022 Winter Olympics and the Winter Paralympics have “caused the significant adverse social impact, and damaged the good image” of the countries IP rights.

As a result, it has pledged to “resolutely crack down” on the registering of “hot words” associated with the names of mascots and athletes.

Highlighting some examples, CNIPA has rejected attempts to register "Gu Ailing" as a trademark—the Chinese name of Gu.

It also rejected an attempt to register "Bingdun Dun" and "Xuedun Dun", references to the Winter Olympics mascots "Bingdundun" and "Xuerongrong”.

The agency said: “Our bureau will, as always, maintain a high-pressure situation of cracking down on malicious trademark registrations, continuously strengthen the strict protection of Olympic buzzwords including the names of Winter Olympics mascots and athletes’ names, and will not violate the principle of good faith and malicious squatting trademarks.”

Alongside this announcement, the agency shared a list of 429 trademark applications rejected for being too closely associated with Olympic IP, mascots and athletes, as well as a list of 43 previously registered trademarks that have been declared invalid.

“Important development”

This news comes shortly after the CNIPA published an update on the progress of its “Blue Sky” campaign to push back against illegal IP behaviour across the country.

The campaign's main goals are uncovering rogue patent agents, increasing efforts to combat malicious trademarking behaviour, and guiding agencies to conduct legal IP services. According to the update, a total of 2,350 agencies have been interviewed, 2,105 have been ordered to rectify behaviour, and 12 have been closed down entirely.

It has also interviewed a total of six government agencies, filed 24 cases for investigation and sanctioned 13 agencies for malicious acts related to the Olympics.

China also recently joined two World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties, the Hague System for the International Registration of Industrial Designs and the Marrakesh Treaty The move was welcomed by WIPO Director General Daren Tang as an “important development for the global IP ecosystem”.

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More on this story

Patents
10 December 2021   China's National Intellectual Property Administration is running a special IP protection campaign to suppress infringements associated with the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games.
Trademarks
24 February 2021   The US Olympic Committee has sued Puma for trademark infringement, alleging the sportswear company has ‘declared war’ on Olympic trademarks.