Shini Plastics Technologies, a Taiwanese auxiliary equipment (e.g. heating and cooling) maker with production bases and technology centres in China and India, has filed multiple patent and trademark infringement cases against mainland Chinese manufacturers including Xinyi Plastic Machinery and Sintd Plastic.
Lily Yao, a member of Shini’s technology marketing department, tells Asia IP that it was from October 2008 that Shini began to know about the counterfeiters. “Shini received numerous customer complaints about poor product quality and lack of followup,” Yao says. “Our technicians found that these products were produced by a factory in Zhongshan and claimed as Shini. More counterfeiters have been found in our follow-up survey.”
“Even now, if you search Shini in Chinese, 信易, online, there will be other websites using the same Chinese name to mislead customers to believe they are Shini’s affiliates,” says Yao.
Besides patents and trademarks, Shini’s marketing and business formats have also been stolen, Yao says. In April 2009, a defendant named Mingchun Wang registered the name Shinifa Electric Heaters and advertised products using mobile loudspeakers with employees wearing Shini suits and using Shini business and permission cards. The company copied Shini’s quotation and sales contract formats, which led to a product seizure ordered by the Dalang Administrative Bureau for Industry and Commerce in October 2009.
There was no other significant sanction in the case, as “we are only hoping to stop companies using our name,” says Alan Chen, Shini’s overseas business and marketing director. “Shinifa Electric Heaters and other counterfeiting companies still exist. They are just not selling fake Shini products.”
Yao says Shini will not give up defending itself in court and will stay ahead of the counterfeiters with new ideas, technology and image to develop its own style and be the benchmark.
Chen estimates that a maximum of 20% of the Chinese market for auxiliary equipment for plastics processing violates the IP rights of Shini and other companies. He says that Shini has won three IP cases. “All of our IP cases come from China, and China’s IP laws are not perfect,” he says.
Two of the infringing firms were former agents of Shini, says Chen. “We have therefore consulted with our lawyers to have additional clauses in our employee non-disclosure agreements to prevent confidential and proprietary information from leaking out again.”
To maintain customers’ awareness of the real Shini, Chen says the company expects to undertake a slight change of the trademark or marketing campaign to reinforce awareness of the brand.
