Facebook's Trademark Strategy in China, Sounds Smarter Than Apple

This post is written by Guest Writer, Mr. Luo Yanjie of Debund Law Office (@BridgeIP), and edited by Gang Lu.

Although it has not been officially admitted operating in China, Facebook, the social networking service giant, is carrying its trademark plan in China when Apple is trapped in the iPad trademark battle in this country, According to a report from local media, Facebook has applied for more than 60 trademarks in Chinese or English in China.

Below show some of the trademarks Facebook applied for and the related classes.

Note that Facebook actually applied for these trademarks in various categories, not just for Internet business:

Class 9 – Software; Class 25 – Clothing; Class – Ads; Class 36 – Finance; class 38 – Telecommunication, Internet communication; Class 41 – Education; Class 42 – Software and Hardware service of PC; Class 45 – Social Service.

It’s quite interesting to see that Class 25 of clothing is also applied by Facebook, which indicates that the company has been fully conscious of any possible free-riding on its trademark’ s reputation. According to our knowledge, the most applied field of the well-known trademark is the manufacturer of clothing and stationery. Therefore Class 16 of stationery is also covered. We would even suggest Facebook to register the trademark in Class 18 of feather products, Class 28 of toy, Class 26 of ornaments and Class 30 of food, which fields are all easy to be infringed.

The applied trademark by Facebook includes not only those in English but also the ones in Chinese, like “脸书”. Although, the most widely spread localized name of Facebook is the phrase of “非死不可”, which means Dooms to Die. Few foreign companies would put attention on the localized trademark of its existing sign before entering the Chinese market, which may hinder the propaganda of its localized brand due to others squatting. But, Facebook’s application shows that foreign investors have realized the importance of the brand localization.

It’s also found out that the trademark of Facebook has been first applied in Class 9 by other companies, which by our opinion, Facebook could take back the trademark through judicial methods. For any squatted trademark, the relief procedure of the trademark regulated by China laws is available to foreign investors other than the purchase of the trademark as the case of Apple.

This post is also co-published on ChinaIPlawyer.