Wuliangye toasts brand win in S. Korea

A Customs official examines Wuliangye spirits exports in Lianyungang port of East China's Jiangsu province.

Chinese premium liquor brand Wuliangye won a lawsuit in South Korea against a fake Wuliangye import company recently, said the www.ipr.gov.cn last month.

Due to Wuliangye's diligence and trademark registration in South Korea, it won a lawsuit against a South Korean distributor that had imported fake Wuliangye liquor to the nation neighboring China.

The court in Seoul convicted the South Korean defendant of illegally importing fake Wuliangye products with a punishment of 30 million won ($2,200) fine and confiscated all the fake imports to South Korea.

Chinese premium liquor brand Wuliangye owns the richest brand value in the nation's baijiu, or white liquor, sector, with its brand valued at 40 billion yuan last year by the RREEF Global Billboard Consulting Company and Beijing Famous-Brand Evaluation Co.

Last year, the company achieved a new milestone, becoming the first Chinese alcohol company to win a trademark dispute in a developed nation.

In January 2007, Wuliangye's trademark agency Sichuan Chofn Law Firm received a call from South Korea Customs officials, who doubted the authenticity of a batch of Wuliangye liquor slated to enter the local market. The trademark did not seem identical to the one Wuliangye registered in the Asian country in 2005. Customs held the products and sent samples to China Wuliangye.

After the products were identified as counterfeit by the Chinese distiller, Wuliangye requested that Customs detain them and transfer the case for prosecution.

According to the Seoul Central District Court's verdict on Sept 23, 2008, from Aug 26, 2005 to Oct 10, 2006, the defendant imported fake alcohol with the trademark "Wuliangye" 14 times, involving a total of 1,680 bottles. The corporate executive of the infringing company was sentenced to one year in prison.

"This is the first China liquor enterprise trademark rights case in South Korea," said Wu Hong, education and advisory committee member of the International Trademark Association.

Before 2003, Wuliangye just paid attention to providing qualified products to the overseas market and had no idea to register its name and logo abroad.

According to Wu, it was a dangerous time for Wuliangye, since foreigners could register the famous Chinese brand in their local market and use it to produce and sell their own products. "That would greatly damage the reputation of the brand - Wuliangye - and raid the market, and Wuliangye might be seriously squeezed by those infringers," Wu told China Intellectual Property News.

The Sichuan-based Chofn law firm observed that some South Korean liquor producers managed to register the brand of Wuliangye, in South Korean pinyin, Chinese characters or logo, in their local markets in 2003. "It was obviously a malicious infringement," said Zhu Jing, an attorney with Wuliangye's trademark agent.

On Feb 19, 2003, Wuliangye submitted an objection to the South Korea Trademark Office and issued supporting material regarding Wuliangye's international well-known trademark and the earlier usage of its brand name.

After a 14-month tug of war and three rounds of court debates, Wuliangye finally recovered its brand in the South Korean market, successfully protecting its intellectual property rights and receiving compensation for good measure.

On Mar 20, 2004, the South Korea Intellectual Property Office (SKIPO) ruled that the "Wuliangye" trademark was not only a well-known trademark in China, but also in South Korea.

After Wuliangye's success, Chinese brands flocked to register in the South Korean market. According to the SKIPO, the number of Chinese trademark applications filed there grew more than five times from 220 in 2003 to 1,129 in 2007, with the annual growth rate exceeding 50 percent. The year-on-year increase of foreign trademark applications in South Korea was more than 10 percent.

Of the 3,870 Chinese trademarks applied for in South Korea from 2003 to 2007, 25.5 percent were registered in English - using either Chinese pronunciations, like Haier and Tsinghua, or coined names like Lenovo and TCL. Only 7.2 percent were registered in Chinese characters, including Wuliangye, Dongfeng and Hongtashan.

The office said the increase in Chinese trademark registrations is attributable to Chinese firms' confidence in their technologies as well as the Chinese government's policy of promoting "Brand China" and strengthening the intellectual property rights of Chinese businesses.

Wuliangye liquor posted $200 million in export volume in 2008, ranking first in the China baijiu or white liquor industry and taking up 90 percent of China's total alcohol exports, according to Wuliangye Group.