Our China lawyers do a lot of work for clients seeking to remove listings of counterfeit goods from Chinese e-commerce sites. Most of these listings are for obviously, sometimes extravagantly counterfeit merchandise, offered in vast quantities at far-below retail prices, with pictures either lifted from the real manufacturer’s website or showing products of dubious quality, and often featuring product variations beyond those offered by the real manufacturer. The sellers are usually unsophisticated trading companies trying to make a quick buck, and we have no trouble removing these listings.
But for some listings, it’s not so clear the merchandise is counterfeit. The quantities are sometimes limited. The prices are not unreasonably low. And the goods appear to be genuine. Many clients still want these listings removed because the sellers are unauthorized resellers, but an Aliprotect takedown request may not be the appropriate strategy.
These goods are by and large “parallel imports” or grey market goods – authentic products legally purchased in a foreign country, imported into China, and then offered for sale. China does not have a clearly articulated position on the legality of parallel imports for trademarked goods, but courts have generally held that selling such goods in China does not constitute trademark infringement.
China follows the “international exhaustion of trademark rights” standard, which means that once trademarked goods have been sold overseas, a brand owner’s exclusive rights to those goods in China have been exhausted, and a reseller’s use of that trademark in China does not constitute trademark infringement. The contrasting standard would be “national exhaustion of trademark rights,” which would only allow resellers to use the owner’s trademark if the first sale of the goods was in China.
But just because China has a de facto policy of allowing parallel imports does not mean that trademark owners are powerless to stop sellers of parallel imports on JD.com or Tmall. Sure, it may not be possible to stop the occasional seller of small lots brought over from America. But it’s the sellers who claim to be authorized dealers or exclusive resellers who are the real problem. And though a trademark infringement claim probably will not work against those companies, it may be possible to succeed with other claims. In the cases where the plaintiff has been able to stop parallel imports, the courts have ruled based on grounds such as unfair competition and consumer protection.
In a 2009 case before the Changsha Intermediate People’s Court, French tiremaker Michelin was able to stop the sale of parallel imports by showing that the defendant that was selling its tires had not properly obtained China health and safety certifications. And in a more recent case, French cosmetic company Pierre Fabre was able to stop the sale of parallel imports by showing that the defendant was improperly holding itself out as the “Chinese official website” and “China shop” for Pierre Fabre, and had used Pierre Fabre’s trademarks and copyrighted material on its own website in a manner suggesting a formal business relationship.
On the other hand, in the past four years courts in Shanghai, Tianjin, and Beijing, respectively, have ruled against Victoria’s Secret, the French wine group Les Grands Chais de France, and the German beermaker Köstritzer Schwarzbierbrauerei in their efforts to stop the sale of parallel imports, because in each case the seller had purchased genuine products, distributed them through standard channels, and sold the products as is without suggesting any relationship between the seller and the plaintiff.
In other words, the appropriate response to e-commerce sales of parallel imports is fact-specific and usually requires additional investigation. Needless to say, before trademark owners even consider taking action, they better make sure they have properly registered their own trademarks.
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