Like many US clean tech companies, successfully registering any company IP rights in China has been a long term saga with an unknown destination. Considering the fact that more than 70% of china’s economy is based on forgery and copying there is no surprise such difficulties in the IP registering field arise.
The Palo Alto, California based car maker “Tesla” lost the race to register the trademark in China to a Chinese businessman named Zhan Baosheng. Now Tesla reports that a resolution had been reached and the Chinese auto market which is one of the largest automotive markets is now reachable for Tesla after the dispute had been solved. Zhan agreed to let the Chinese authorities complete the process of canceling the Tesla Trademark he had registered at no cost for Tesla. Various domains in china containing the Tesla trademark had also been transferred in the frame of the agreement between the sides, the compensation upon they agreed has not been disclosed to the public.
The not so covered Trademark Trolling is actually not a new discussion. Apple, Unilever and Koninklijke Philips have all been “Victimized” by various trolls who registering various IP rights prior to the enterprises footprint in China, which lead to many disputes in the past.
Zhan had registered Tesla trademark both in Chinese and in English in year 2006, negotiations had been going for years but have yielded no fruit, It is just last August that an extensive agreement had been successfully concluded. Tesla from now on is the undisputed right holder of its trademarks in China.
