Counterfeit trademarks in China: Castel’s “uniqueness is arrested”, Penfolds has become victim of “get rich in a hurry”
By Danny Friedmann
Until the majority of the Chinese population is more familiar with foreign brand names, foreign brands should take the destiny of their own brand in China in their own hand.
If foreign brands are not proactively coming up with a transliteration of their brand name, the Chinese consumers (often not a flattering one) or counterfeiters will, as the illegitimate brokerages of asymmetric information. Not only a transliteration of the trademark name need to be registered in China, but preferably also the English words that are the phonetic translation of the transliteration.
Sour taste
Lafite, which IP Dragon covered here and here, has a commercial on YouKu see here in which someone from Lafite says:
“When you see the logo of DBR (Domaines Barones de Rothschild) with the five arrows, that means you are secure, you are insured, that the wine will be good.”
Unfortunately, these features are not enough to distinguish fake from real Lafite. Sina Style published an interesting article which includes a photo in which you see two counterfeit logos, which Sina Style calls “Shanzhai” (read more about Shanzhai here).
The Chinese characters for Lafite are 拉(la1=to pull) 菲(fei1=luxuriant (plant growth), rich with fragrance). But the counterfeit versions of Lafite use similar English words, such as Lafitel and Lafayette Empire in combination with parts of the Lafite logo.
Castel’s uniqueness is arrested
The name Castel, which means castle in French is descriptive, but it was used since 1949 and one can assume it has acquired second meaning. Castel depuit 1949, might be extra attractive to mainland China, since the People’s Republic of China was founded in the same year.
In China, there is a wine which uses on its logo the transliteration of Castel as 卡斯特=ka si te: 卡(ka3=stop), 斯 (si1=this) 特 (te4=special, unique) in combination with the French words: Caves Maître, which means master of the cellar. The colour of the logo is the same bordeaux red and gold as in the original Castel logo.
Recently Caves Maître sued Castel Frères for infringing their trademark. Read Jim’s Loire article here.
Penfolds victim of “get rich fast” scheme
The transliteration of the Australian wine house Penfolds in Chinese is 奔(ben1=to hurry) 富(fu4=rich). Penfolds did not register the Chinese characters 奔富, that people used to describe Penfolds. And then it was a small step for a trademark squatter to register Ben Fu in combination with these characters 奔富.
Thank you Michelle for pointing out the Sina Style article.