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Trump's Past Trademark Dispute with China Raises Concern

by Hu Wei

   A decade-long trademark dispute between U.S. President-elect Donald
   Trump and China has attracted wide media attention since the real
   estate mogul and reality television star won the Nov. 8 election.

   Trump filed a Chinese trademark application in December 2006 for the
   word "Trump" in Class 37, covering myriad commercial and residential
   real estate services such as building construction, repairs, and
   heating and air circulation systems installation.

   A man named Dong Wei, however, had filed an application for "Trump" in
   the same category just days ahead of him.

   After Donald Trump's application was rejected by the Chinese Trademark
   Office, he appealed to the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board
   (TRAB) and lost. Then he sued TRAB in the Beijing Intermediate People's
   Court.

   The court dismissed his case, citing Article 28 of China's Trademark
   Law that disallows identical or similar trademark registration.

   In May 2015, the Beijing Higher People's Court sustained the original
   ruling by the lower court.

   FILE - Chinese fan websites for Donald Trump are displayed on a
   computer with the words "Donald J. Trump super fan nation, Full and
   unconditional support for Donald J. Trump to be elected U.S. president"
   in Beijing, China, May 18, 2016.

   On Tuesday, Zhou Dandan, a Beijing-based lawyer who represented Trump
   in the trademark case, noted it was not surprising that Dong succeeded
   in keeping his trademark because although Trump and his services have
   been world famous, they were not a household name in China back in
   2006.

   Andy Sun, executive director of the Hawaii-based Asia Pacific Legal
   Institute, added that under Chinese trademark law, domain names are
   registered on a first-come, first-served basis.

   Ruling in Trump's favor

   After several failed attempts to register his trademark, Trump sought
   to invalidate some of Dong Wei's trademark services in Class 37 that
   had been left unused.

   In September 2016, the TRAB ruled in Trump's favor, invalidating Dong's
   mark with respect to everything except mining and drilling.

   Trump's new mark was published in the Trademark Gazette on Nov. 13, and
   it will proceed to registration within three months if no one files an
   opposition.

   Judging from a letter Trump sent to former U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary
   Locke in 2011, some analysts are now wondering whether the trademark
   disputes will have any negative impact on U.S. trade policy toward
   China, especially in the area of intellectual property protection, once
   Trump takes office in January.

   In the letter, Trump asked Locke to intervene on his behalf in a
   lawsuit he brought against a Macau coffee shop that had registered the
   word "Trump."

   'Faithless, corrupt and tainted'

   Trump also called China's entire judicial system "faithless, corrupt
   and tainted," and urged other countries to refrain from any trade
   practice or business relationships with China.

   Sun, of the Asia Pacific Legal Institute, however, urged the public to
   take a wait-and-see approach about Trump's trade policy toward China.

   He told VOA that if Trump quits the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
   trade deal, as he promised during the presidential campaign, many
   countries could be pushed to join the China-led Regional Comprehensive
   Economic Partnership, in which requirements for intellectual property
   protection are much less stringent than those in the TPP.

   It is difficult for Trump to strike a subtle balance amid all the
   entanglements, Sun said.

   This report was produced in collaboration with VOA's Mandarin Service.