Our client Suzuki is a Fortune 500 company and enjoys great reputation in auto and motor industry. In China, though the client obtained registration for its house marks “铃木”, “SUZUKI” and “  ” as early as 1979, the “free-ride” behavior as imitating or plagiarizing the client’s marks had emerged endlessly, which bothered the client very much.  According to the specific situation, we proposed practical solutions and successfully prevented a number of “free ride” trademark applications in opposition and invalidation cases. Particularly, we advised the client to collect evidence to prove the well-known status of its marks and submitted such evidence in the relevant cases in which the client’s house marks “铃木”, “SUZUKI” and “  ” had all been recognized well-known.

At the same time as taking measures against the “free ride” trademarks, we helped the client watch the trademarks published so as to find out the trademark application which may damage the client’s interests at the first time. Simultaneously, we helped the client set up a plan to protect its trademarks comprehensively in order to prevent “free ride” trademarks get published in the filing procedure. From our watch service, it can be seen clearly that the imitating or plagiarizing of the client’s marks have decreased substantially in recent two years comparing with that a few years ago, which resulted a gradually lower cost for protecting rights.