Horace Lam, a partner at Lovells China, said that understanding and then investigating the problem is key to tackling counterfeiting in the country.
He said that sometimes the solution to a China counterfeit case can be found abroad. He also recommended Hong Kong SAR as a viable place to take the counterfeiters to court as it is often the case that they tend to store their money there.
Lam suggested going after the middlemen involved in the counterfeiting or targeting transit countries and in some cases even going after customers.
He said there are big fish (organized counterfeiting mafia) and little fish (small outfits that indulge in counterfeiting) and brand owners should focus on controlling the latter.
“We should not let the little fish become the big fish”, said Lam.
He was joined by Annie Siu Ting Tsoi from Deacons and Christopher J. Woods who moderated the session. Tsoi looked at the importance of marketing brands in China and gave examples of how foreign brands protect their Chinese name brands.
She also alerted the audience to the fact that retail marks are not registrable in China and addressed the issue of remittance of royalties outside of China.
Woods looked at the growth of Chinese brands internationally. He said that brands such as LENOVO, HAIER and HONG QI are competing with big brands especially in the US market and that Western brands should take note of the emergence of strong global Chinese brands.
The panelists started the session by extending their sympathies to those from the Sichuan province of China and the Chinese people in the aftermath of the recent earthquake. “Our thoughts are with them,” said Woods.
