Case brief:

On Nov 1, 2021, the Songjiang district market supervision administration received a clue from the Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration. A subsequent investigation showed that Sheng Jiwen, the legal representative of Maiqian Intellectual Property Agency (Shanghai) Co Ltd, had registered seven companies successively since 2018 – including Maiqian – and had applied for a large number of registered trademarks, not for the purpose of use, with the companies as applicants.

Through third-party platforms, Sheng transferred the registered trademarks to seek improper benefits. His seven companies applied for a total of 1,058 trademarks from Nov 1, 2019 and 504 of them were successfully registered.

The Songjiang district market supervision administration believed that the companies violated the Trademark Law. They were given warnings, fined and their illegal income was impounded. As the principal of the companies, Sheng was given a warning and fined.

Significance:

For a long time, the malicious registration of trademarks has seriously disrupted the order of trademark registration management and damaged the country's business environment. 

In this case, the administrative department not only punished the trademark applicants, but also punished the trademark agencies, which effectively acted to curb the malicious registration behavior and provided a precedent for similar cases.