BEIJING (AFX) - HiSense Group, one of China's largest home appliances makers and the parent of Qingdao HiSense Electric Co Ltd (SHA 600060), said it is confident of winning its trademark dispute with Germany's Bosch-Siemens Household Co Ltd (BSH).
"The lawsuit, although it might go on for over a year, will surely end in HiSense's victory, because BSH's practices are obviously illegal," HiSense's representative lawyer, Zhang Baoguo, said in a company statement.
"They are not even using the trademark of 'HiSense' that they registered maliciously in Germany in 1999, by which time we had already registered the trademark in over 40 countries," the company said.
HiSense and BSH began negotiating an out of court settlement in late 2002 after the Chinese company found that its trademarked products were not allowed to be sold in Germany.
But after HiSense refused to pay BSH more than 10 mln eur in September 2003 for the trademark, BSH raised the charge to 40 mln in February last year.
After the proposal was turned down, Siemens, which owns 50 pct of BSH, filed a lawsuit against HiSense for using the trademark at home appliance exhibitions in Germany.
HiSense said its products sold in Germany and across the EU carry a new trademark -- 'Hsense'. It said it sold more than 100,000 liquid crystal display (LCD) televisions in the EU last year.
HiSense said Siemens has "illegally" registered six other Chinese famous trademarks, including "Firefly" of Fujian-based Firefly Lighting Co Ltd, and "ORION" of the Orion Machinery (Shanghai) Co Ltd.
"BSH is afraid of increasing and intensifying competition from Chinese companies but its practices of registering other companies' trademarks are against the principles of the World Trade Organization," HiSense quoted Dong Baolin, a consultant with the China Trademark Association, as saying.
"The dishonest actions will bring considerably large harm to Siemens' image in China," Dong added.
Siemens operates 45 joint ventures in China, over a wide variety of sectors including mobile handsets, energy and transport. Its sales in China in the fiscal year of 2004 up to the end of September, 2004, rose 28 pct, year-on-year, to 38.4 bln yuan on strong demand in the power sector.
It is hoping to more than double the figure to about 50 bln yuan for the fiscal year of 2005.
(1 usd = 8.3 yuan; 0.8 eur)
tom.wang@xinhuafinance.com
tom/bm/dk
For more information and to contact AFX: www.afxnews.com and www.afxpress.com
"The lawsuit, although it might go on for over a year, will surely end in HiSense's victory, because BSH's practices are obviously illegal," HiSense's representative lawyer, Zhang Baoguo, said in a company statement.
"They are not even using the trademark of 'HiSense' that they registered maliciously in Germany in 1999, by which time we had already registered the trademark in over 40 countries," the company said.
HiSense and BSH began negotiating an out of court settlement in late 2002 after the Chinese company found that its trademarked products were not allowed to be sold in Germany.
But after HiSense refused to pay BSH more than 10 mln eur in September 2003 for the trademark, BSH raised the charge to 40 mln in February last year.
After the proposal was turned down, Siemens, which owns 50 pct of BSH, filed a lawsuit against HiSense for using the trademark at home appliance exhibitions in Germany.
HiSense said its products sold in Germany and across the EU carry a new trademark -- 'Hsense'. It said it sold more than 100,000 liquid crystal display (LCD) televisions in the EU last year.
HiSense said Siemens has "illegally" registered six other Chinese famous trademarks, including "Firefly" of Fujian-based Firefly Lighting Co Ltd, and "ORION" of the Orion Machinery (Shanghai) Co Ltd.
"BSH is afraid of increasing and intensifying competition from Chinese companies but its practices of registering other companies' trademarks are against the principles of the World Trade Organization," HiSense quoted Dong Baolin, a consultant with the China Trademark Association, as saying.
"The dishonest actions will bring considerably large harm to Siemens' image in China," Dong added.
Siemens operates 45 joint ventures in China, over a wide variety of sectors including mobile handsets, energy and transport. Its sales in China in the fiscal year of 2004 up to the end of September, 2004, rose 28 pct, year-on-year, to 38.4 bln yuan on strong demand in the power sector.
It is hoping to more than double the figure to about 50 bln yuan for the fiscal year of 2005.
(1 usd = 8.3 yuan; 0.8 eur)
tom.wang@xinhuafinance.com
tom/bm/dk
For more information and to contact AFX: www.afxnews.com and www.afxpress.com
© 2005 AFX News
