Chinese Not Amused By 'Not Made in China' Trademark Application

According to the People's Daily the Chinese people were angered by application of the trademark 'Not made in China' to the EU Office for Harmonization of Internal Market.

The Chinese arguments stated on a petition forwarde by the Beijing Trademark and Patent Agency against the application are:
it makes a serious confusion with 'Made in China';

• conveys severely misleading value to European consumers;
• causes great damage to the image and benefits of Made in China' products;
• injures the Chinese people's feeling deeply and violates the market rules," says the petition put forward by the Beijing Trademark and Patent Agency.

According to the People's Daily "Trade marks like 'Not Made in China' is an evident discriminative rhetoric against 'Made in China'.

There were a lot of signatures; the Beijing Trademark and Patent Agency recorded 3,000 signatures, www.cnstock.com recorded 115 and Netease recorded 10,097 signatures and 357 messages. Then again the numbers are not that spectaculars on a population of 1,3 billion people.

These hurt feelings will be temporary. Remember when Japan was generally seen as a copycat. At the time the perception of a product with the 'Made in Japan' label was that the product must be a bad quality imitation. But Japanese industry moved very fast to the next levels; emulation, making the same product as good as the original and then improving on in; creation. Now the perception of 'Made in Japan' is that of quality and creativity. China should only copy Japan's development...and then improve on it.

Read People's Daily Online article here.