Is the "618" trademark a general trademark

In today's e-commerce online shopping promotion activities, people are most familiar with Taobao's "Double Eleven", which turns the original single dog exclusive festival "Singles' Day" into an annual online shopping carnival.

At the same time, Liu Qiangdong was also jealous of Alibaba's shopping carnival and tried to launch a big promotion campaign on the 11th of the month until Alibaba registered the "11th of the month" as a trademark and banned Jingdong from using the name of the 11th of the month to do e-commerce online shopping activities in the name of infringement of trademark rights. In desperation, Liu Qiangdong chose to make the store celebration of Jingdong's birth day bigger and bigger, and the ending became a "618" that gradually became as famous as the "Double Eleven".

Jingdong's 618 this year has not only teamed up with hundreds of thousands of brands and major e-commerce platforms around the world to carry out online activities, but also brought in tens of thousands of offline stores across the country and a number of enterprises that have joined Jingdong Kepler's plan to participate together. Not only that, Jingdong has also integrated artificial intelligence and famous IP, playing a five-in-one "technology retail, brand retail, IP retail, financial retail and multi-terminal retail". Jingdong's role in 618 has changed from a channel provider to a supplier of China's retail infrastructure.

According to the information of China Trademark Network, there are as many as 18 "Double Eleven" trademarks. Among them, Alibaba Group Holding Co., Ltd. has three trademarks, namely category 35, category 38 and category 41, covering advertising, industrial management, industrial management, office affairs, telecommunications, education, training, entertainment and sports activities and other industries, it has also registered 11 trademarks related to "Double Eleven Carnival", "Double Eleven Online Shopping Carnival", "double 11 Carnival" and "double 11 Online Shopping Carnival. Except Alibaba, other e-commerce platforms cannot use the double eleven label for advertising trademarks. Jingdong Mall also applied for the "Jingdong Double Eleven" trademark in 2013, covering 7 categories, but the trademark was not successfully registered.

At the launching ceremony of the mid -618 shopping festival, Xu Lei specially stressed that Jingdong's "618" trademark would not be exclusive to himself. 618 trademark and image, forever, free, not exclusive, open to all enterprises, including friends.

So are "Double Eleven" and "618" the exclusive trademark rights of Ali and Jingdong?

Article 11 of the Trademark Law stipulates that the purpose of prohibiting the registration of generic names of goods or services as trademarks is to prevent the appropriation of public resources by private rights.

"Double Eleven" and "618" will belong to Ali and Jingdong respectively, and no one can use them any more? For trademarks with date meaning like this, if they are over-publicized and make the same industry compete to follow suit, it may not be a good thing. A mark is not a common name at the time of registration, but it may lose the distinctiveness of the trademark due to various reasons in the use of the mark, thus gradually changing from a commercial mark to a common name. Once this happens, the registered trademark will face the trademark being declared invalid. Therefore, for this type of trademark, the wisest choice for the trademark owner is to open it to the outside world, otherwise other businesses can also protest to the Trademark Office and revoke the trademark. Then the conclusion is obvious, in the future "double eleven" and "618" will be shared by all.

News source:http://www.caigou.com.cn/news/2013062444.shtml

This news was re-edited and reorganized by the Huaxun team and added analytical comments.