Legal Services on Trademark Objection of Dollken of Germany

German Dollken Plastic Co., Ltd. is the owner of the trademark “DOLLKEN”. The products of this company entered in the market of China via different channels, and the company established a representative office in China and participated in various exhibitions, displays, promotion campaigns, but this trademark was not registered in China. A company in Shanghai was one of commercial agents of the German company through years, selling products of the company in the East China and making advertisements and exhibitions, but later the parties’ cooperation terminated because of divergent views on some issues. However, shortly thereafter, we discovered that this Shanghai company had applied to the State Trademark Bureau for registration of the trademark “DOLLKEN” and its corresponding version of Chinese characters, and the application had passed the preliminary approval. We contacted with the German company timely and raised a trademark objection to the Bureau as the company’s agent. We reasoned that, firstly, the trademark with its comparative influence in the market was earliest used by the German company; secondly, the Shanghai company, the commercial agent of the German company, registered the objected trademark in the name of itself, which violated the provisions of Article 15 and Article 31 of the Trademark Law; thirdly, as the horizontal competitor, the Shanghai company’s ill-intended registration violated the principle of good faith, which constituted an act of unfair competition. Therefore, we asked the Bureau to reject the application of registration of the objected trademark pursuant to related laws on the basis of the aforesaid facts. In the end, because of the great pressure, the Shanghai company assigned the application of registration regarding the trademark to the German company.