心机商标爆雷 抄近道的品牌正在被拉黑

This article exposes the widespread "tricky trademark" scheme rampant in the current market, and updates consumers on the latest regulatory progress and practical tips to avoid being scammed:

1. What are tricky trademarks: Businesses pre-emptively register common public terms that describe product quality, craftsmanship, and efficacy as trademarks, then mislead consumers through packaging and typography. When caught, they avoid liability by claiming they simply registered a trademark. There are four common types of schemes: highlighting craftsmanship, implying superior quality, claiming origin, and exaggerating net content. Multiple well-known brands including Jinmailang, Chen Keming, and Baixiang have been involved in such practices.

2. Latest regulatory progress: The China Trademark Website has launched a dedicated governance section for tricky trademarks, opening a public reporting channel for long-term governance. As of June 2024, 1,219 deceptive trademarks have been declared invalid.

3. Practical tips for consumers: Do not only be misled by the enlarged trademark text on packaging; always check authentic information such as ingredient lists and product specifications. If you find deceptive practices, you can report via the China Trademark Website, and vote to blacklist brands that use these tricks.

This article outlines the current status and regulatory trends of tricky trademarks, clarifying the current industry environment and future direction for brand building:

1. Regulatory policy has clearly tightened. The old practice of pre-emptively registering descriptive public terms as tricky trademarks for decades of easy profits is no longer viable. The state has now opened a public reporting channel, a large number of non-compliant trademarks have been declared invalid, and most involved brands have been forced to suspend production for rectification. A public scandal will trigger consumer distrust across the entire brand, undermining overall brand development.

2. The core reasons brands flocked to adopt tricky trademarks in the past were low penalty costs, loose early regulation, and fast differentiation amid widespread product homogenization. Today, however, consumers’ ability to identify tricks has improved greatly, information is far more transparent, and wording schemes are easily exposed, which ends up eroding brand goodwill.

3. Future brand building must follow a long-term approach: create strongly original, distinctive trademarks, deliver solid product quality, and communicate clear brand values, building goodwill through user word-of-mouth instead of seeking quick gains through wording tricks.

This article interprets the latest tricky trademark governance policy, and sorts out potential risks and market opportunities for all types of sellers:

1. The latest policy makes clear that the state is conducting long-term governance of tricky trademarks, and the China Trademark Website has opened a public reporting channel. Any trademark that is deceptive or misleading to consumers will be declared invalid even if it has already been registered. Non-compliant sellers now face far higher costs, including regulatory penalties and public condemnation.

2. Risk warning: Sellers should conduct an immediate self-inspection of the trademarks used by products in their stores. If any tricky deceptive trademarks are found, replace and rectify them as soon as possible to avoid damaging the reputation of your entire store, or even being collectively blacklisted by consumers, after a scandal breaks.

3. Opportunity insight: After the governance of tricky trademarks is completed, all brands will return to a level playing field. The market space previously grabbed by schemes will be freed up. Consumers today are more willing to pay for authentic quality. Sellers that focus on solid products and compliant operation will gain more growth opportunities, and earn consumer trust as long as they deliver quality products and honest marketing.

The tricky trademark chaos and subsequent governance offer multiple important insights for manufacturing-focused factories:

1. Many mature industries currently face severe product homogenization, and many brands pursue differentiation through tricky trademarks rather than investing in product improvement itself. This serves as a reminder to factories that the core of future market competition is real product capability, not cooperating with brands on wordplay gimmicks.

2. Consumer demand has shifted. Today’s consumers have better identification ability and higher requirements for authentic product quality. Factories should focus on real quality improvement in production and design — such as actual craftsmanship upgrades and meeting real health needs — rather than cooperating with brands on deceptive marketing for short-term orders, which will ultimately ruin your own production reputation.

3. After the era of tricky trademarks ends, market competition will return to focusing on products themselves. Factories that prioritize R&D innovation and consistent quality will secure more long-term cooperation with brand owners, win consumer recognition, and enjoy more stable development space. Factories should abandon short-term speculative thinking and stick to a long-term quality-focused route.

The tricky trademark chaos and governance exposed in this article clarifies industry development trends and new business opportunities for relevant service providers:

1. New industry trends: Trademark regulation has been upgraded. Instead of only auditing the compliance of the mark itself, regulators now target misleading practices after registration, and long-term governance of tricky trademarks has become a new regulatory priority. Traditional trademark services that profit from helping clients pre-emptively register descriptive public terms no longer have room to survive.

2. Core client pain points today: Many brands that adopted tricky trademarks in the past now need support to handle trademark invalidation, compliance rectification, and brand trust repair. At the same time, a large number of brands facing homogenized competition need new differentiation solutions, and no longer need services that enable speculative wording tricks.

3. New business directions: Service providers can pivot to helping brands build strongly original, distinctive trademarks, assisting brands in refining their brand values, and creating marketing strategies based on authentic products. They can also provide compliance rectification and trust repair services for non-compliant brands, to capture new market demand brought by regulatory upgrading.

Tricky trademark governance offers many insights for the operation and merchant management of all types of platform operators:

1. Tricky trademarks have become an industry issue of common concern to both regulators and consumers, and many merchants on e-commerce platforms are involved in such practices. If platforms do not address this issue proactively, they can easily face negative public opinion and even bear joint liability, so they should conduct proactive inspections to avoid risks.

2. Operational management direction: Platforms can cooperate with national regulatory requirements to conduct trademark inspections of products sold on their platforms, and proactively remove products with deceptive tricky trademarks. This not only complies with regulatory policy, but also improves consumer trust in the platform and boosts user retention.

3. Merchant recruitment and development direction: After tricky trademark governance, long-term-oriented brands that focus on solid products and compliant operation will stand out. Platforms can adjust their recruitment strategy to prioritize onboarding these high-quality compliant brands, phase out speculative merchants that rely on tricks, optimize the overall merchant structure on the platform, avoid industry-wide reputational risk, and improve the platform’s long-term competitiveness.

The tricky trademark phenomenon and governance exposed in this article provides new materials and directions for industrial and brand research:

1. New trends and issues in industrial development: As homogenized competition intensifies in mature industries such as food and home appliances, it has spawned the speculative practice of pre-emptively registering descriptive public terms as tricky trademarks, with the food sector being the hardest hit. This scheme has low penalty costs and large room for regulatory arbitrage, making it a new issue of distorted industry competition that deserves in-depth research.

2. New changes at the regulatory level: In the past, intellectual property and market regulation were managed by separate systems, creating regulatory loopholes that allowed tricky trademarks to proliferate. Regulators have now closed these loopholes by launching a public reporting section and conducting long-term governance, with more than a thousand non-compliant trademarks declared invalid. This marks the official end of the era of trademark speculation, providing a new case for research on regulatory policy improvement.

3. New insights for business model research: The short-sighted business model of profiting from trademark speculation is no longer sustainable. Future brand competition will return to focusing on goodwill and consumer mindshare, and the long-term, authentic product-focused brand building model will become the mainstream. This provides a new direction for research on brand development in the new consumer environment.