116 Fake Milk Tea Shops Rectified in Gansu Province

116 Fake Milk Tea Shops Rectified in Gansu Province

Recently, the reporter learned from the Gansu Market Supervision and Administration Bureau that since this year, the bureau has investigated and dealt with 116 fake “Fangha” milk tea shops in 13 cities and prefectures of the province. These fake shops later “changed their names” and put an end to their unfair competition.

It is learned hat “Fangha” is short for “Fangha Coffee”, a brand created by Geng Shengchen, head of Gansu Fangha Catering and Entertainment Management Co., Ltd. in 2010. Geng submitted an application for registration of “Fangha” trademark in April 2016.

According to the investment, “Fangha” only has five direct shops in Lanzhou, but there are 116 catering and beverage stores that have “放哈” (the Chinese characters of “Fangha”) in their registered names in the province, including 90 in Lanzhou city alone.

Under the unified deployment of Gansu Market Supervision and Administration Bureau and after seven months of verification, the market supervision and administration departments of all parts of the province have taken a series of law enforcement actions. Up to now, 10 shops have taken the initiative to rectify. Among the remaining 106 “Fangha” shops, 35 were put on record, and 71 were ordered to rectify with a fine of 27,000 Yuan.

An consultant on intellectual property told the reporter that the difficulty of trademark rights protection lies in the high cost of time, litigation and so on. Experts in the industry would suggest companies to register multiple types of trademarks in advance before opening a store. This will help avoid some speculators’ preemptive trademark registration and reduce the cost of protecting the company’s rights.

 

 

October 27, 2019

Source: China Consumer Journal, Beijing Business Today

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