Organisation: Tencent

While ‘shanzhai’ companies have traditionally been regarded as a scourge on corporate innovation, a new report, published by UK think-tank Nesta, has urged a rethink – observing that several of these shanzhai businesses have absorbed and adapted technology and successfully launched market-leading products. While negative perceptions of these companies may be slowly changing in some quarters, international brand owners are advised to stay current on their marketplace activities if they are to protect their brand in China strategically.

22 October 2013

A senior judge from the intellectual property tribunal under China’s Supreme People's Court has urged domestic companies to do more to protect their trademarks in foreign markets, in a bid to counter rising incidences of trademark squatting.

25 July 2013

The shift from local social media usage to a Facebook-Twitter-Google+ oligopoly may seem to be positive news for brand owners in terms of their ability to focus online policing efforts on a smaller universe of sites, but the local perspective remains critical.

29 January 2013

New research identifies the most valuable Chinese brands, providing an insight into how innovation is being driven by consumer demand. Crucially, the push to establish market-leading brands should provide a boost to the country’s IP system.

08 January 2013

While the majority of applications for the new gTLDs have been in Latin characters, a number of brand owners have used to opportunity to apply for internationalised domain names (IDNs). And out of the 116 IDN applications, the majority of these - around 70 - are in Chinese. While many applicants have remained close-lipped, details about the motivations for applying are coming out – with trademark use a key component.

25 June 2012

The seventh annual Brandz survey has revealed a strong showing for Chinese brands. Thirteen names from China feature on this year’s list of the 100 most valuable brands in the world, which has seen a rise in the Chinese representation every year since the survey began.

28 May 2012