The furniture that can be seen everywhere in daily life will also cause the manufacturers to bring the lawsuit to the court because of the similar appearance. With the development of the economy and the improvement of living standards, the constant changes in the demand for furniture have prompted the furniture industry to compete in the fierce market. , constantly introducing new and new styles of furniture, not only to meet the different needs of the public, but also to enable enterprises to win in the competition. However, the subsequent incidents of piracy, counterfeiting and other infringements of intellectual property rights have become increasingly rampant and have become a cancer that affects the healthy development of the furniture industry.
"Infringement of infringement not only caused the furniture industry to suffer unprecedented losses, but also had a bad impact on the fair competition environment of the market." In response to these problems, at the "Furniture Industry Intellectual Property Protection Seminar" held recently, The industry and experts and scholars have their own opinions and suggestions for promoting the improvement of the intellectual property protection system.
Design, production, plagiarism, counterfeiting, infringement
In late March of this year, the staff of the Dongguan Intermediate People's Court of Guangdong Province came to the International Famous Furniture (Dongguan) Exhibition Hall to seal up a product in the Gujia Home Furnishing Exhibition Hall. It turned out that during the exhibition, a functional sofa chair of Chivas and Gujia Home “caught the faceâ€, this product is suspected of “plagiarizing†a patented product of Zhihua Shi.
In fact, the alleged plagiarism of furniture products has occurred frequently in recent years, and more and more appeals to the courts. At the beginning of 2012, the staff of Shuangye Furniture Company found on the market that the products of Lai's furniture produced by Jinan Aoke Furniture Co., Ltd. have the appearance of copying the appearance of double-leaf furniture, especially the bedside and product of a product. The porch was exactly the same as the original product of Futaba, so he brought the Lai's furniture to court and accused him of infringing the appearance patent.
On June 26, 2013, the court made a first-instance judgment, confirming that the bedside and porch furniture products produced and sold by Lai's furniture infringed the appearance patents that Fuye Furniture had applied for, and sentenced Lai's furniture to compensate for several hundred thousand yuan of double-leaf furniture. Lai's furniture was dissatisfied and appealed. In November 2013, the Beijing Higher People's Court made a final judgment, confirming that Lai's furniture infringed the patent right of Fuye Furniture.
The case lasted for more than a year, and was hailed as the first case of the patent for defending the rights of solid wood furniture in China's home furnishing industry. For the first time, it broke the magical spell of the patent lawsuit of the furniture enterprise.
The move also spurred more furniture companies to dare to stand up and say "no" to the infringement. Although furniture companies have not lacked rights protection cases before, most of them only use the "kick-in" method to affirm their originality and have not appealed to the law.
Zhu Changling, chairman of the China Furniture Association, said that after more than 30 years of reform and opening up, especially in the past decade, the Chinese furniture industry has become a large industry with a total output value of 1.3 trillion yuan. The number of employees reached 6 million. Completed 53.1 billion US dollars. "China has become the largest exporter of furniture. The issue of intellectual property protection is a problem that has long plagued the furniture industry. The phenomenon of plagiarism in design has often occurred in the industry and needs to be addressed and solved." Zhu Changling said.
What is the reason for the difficulty in safeguarding rights in the industry?
Experts pointed out that the current infringement of intellectual property rights in the Chinese furniture industry has become very serious. In addition, the infringement compensation is low, litigation is difficult to become a common phenomenon, and the company's ability to defend its rights is limited. The industry generally laments that it is difficult to defend rights.
“Top 100 furniture has encountered many infringements of intellectual property rights in recent years, and we are also launching corresponding legal procedures. Some of the new forms of infringement have been encountered. For example, there are many small workshops on the online sales platform. I don’t know where the factory is, just We announced our information on the sales platform and sold counterfeit products. When we sue, even the corresponding defendants could not find it.†Jiang Bo, a law consultant of the top 100 furniture, said.
Wei Xinxin, the legal manager of Qumei Furniture, also said that Qumei Furniture has paid attention to the design of products since 2000 and has invested a lot of money. However, partners and competitors in the furniture industry have a weak awareness of intellectual property protection. “We have found that in a Jiangsu store, there are small factories that plagiarize our products. When we organized the lawsuit, the small workshop had been written off, which prevented us from defending our rights.â€
Qi Lin, chairman of the Beijing Furniture Brand Alliance, said that rights protection is exciting, but it is also very helpless. The industry is screaming, but progress is slow. There are very few real research designs and independent innovations in the industry, and they are more willing to take shortcuts. The process of discovering infringing enterprises is difficult. The infringing enterprises directly copy and copy the products. The publicity pictures are taken from the website, which makes it difficult to obtain evidence in the rights defense. Some infringed enterprises have no choice but to settle out of court.
Gao Fei, the executive president of Futaba Furniture, felt from the practice of the company's lawsuit that in addition to the common problems of obtaining evidence, the implementation of the judgment is difficult for many companies to feel helpless. In addition, legal procedures and lack of legal knowledge have become one of the factors in the industry's difficulty in safeguarding rights.
For more information on China's furniture industry, please pay attention to the official website of Xianghe Furniture City ().
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