Following the trademarking of the "smiley face" and "yeah" emoticons, Tencent's "naughty" emoticon has also been trademarked.
Can Tencent tolerate this? Of course not!
The "naughty" emoticon is trademark No. 26304081, which was applied for registration on September 08, 2017, and is registered in Class 35 for displaying goods in communication media for retail purposes; providing an online marketplace for buyers and sellers of goods and services; commercial management of actors; relocation of business enterprises; searching for sponsorship; secretarial services; providing an online marketplace for buyers and sellers of goods and services; business management of actors; relocation of business enterprises. Finding sponsorship; secretarial; accounting; business management of franchises; marketing on behalf of others; pharmaceutical retail or wholesale services, and other services, by the applicant, Huizhou Fangfangshun Industrial Co Ltd, Helensburg Branch.
With this pattern, the road to registration of this trademark is destined to be bumpy.
In the second year of application on July 18, 2018, the first was rejected by the Trademark Office application for registration, and then through the refusal of re-examination successfully reached the stage of the preliminary announcement, but the good times are not long, in the preliminary announcement of the expiration of the first 3 days, Tencent out of the blue, the trademark objection.
There is also a "naughty" expression in the QQ emoticon, and the trademark is too similar to it.
However, Tencent did not have a corresponding trademark, and provided proof of copyright, stating that it had a prior copyright in the work "QQ Emoji - Emoji Series".
The two emoji graphics are similar in terms of compositional elements, design style, and presentation, and have constituted substantial similarity. Moreover, Tencent had been using and publicizing the work for a long time, which had a certain influence on the relevant public, and the applicant of the "naughty" trademark had the possibility of being exposed to the work.
Finally, the trademark application was recently rejected.
Tencent has fought many battles when it comes to emojis.
In 2017, the "muffled face" emoji was registered by a person called "Jin Zhaoping", and in September 2018, the graphic of the "muffled face" emoji passed the preliminary examination of the trademark. Preliminary Examination and Determination. The goods/services for which this trademark is authorized for use are in Class 25, covering clothing, baby full suits, shoes, hats and socks, ties and scarves.
This news triggered widespread public opinion, once on the microblogging hot search, countless melon people surprised. To this end, Tencent also responded publicly in a fire that it would file an opposition application to the trademark within the statutory period. It is reported that on December 5, 2018, the class 25 "cover the face" emoticon trademark registered by Jin Zhaoping has been successfully opposed by Tencent.
In September 2018, Tencent's "yeah" emoticon was applied for registration of the trademark by others, it is understood that the "yeah" trademark was snatched is class 11, the goods and services are water supply equipment, water pipes for sanitary equipment, mixing faucets for water pipes, toilets and so on. The trademark was rejected on February 11, 2019, because the applicant did not participate in the reexamination of the rejection, the final trademark was not registered successfully.
In fact, with the industrialization of emojis, there are intellectual property issues. While it is certainly feasible to register emoticons as trademarks, this does not include registering other people's emoticons. Taking WeChat emoticons as an example, these emoticons are designed by Tencent designers over many years in multiple versions, involving copyright.
Even if the use of celebrity emoticons, which also involves portrait rights and so on, such as Ge You lying emoticons, Yao Ming laughing emoticons are so, ordinary netizens recreational use of the problem, once the businessman used these emoticons used for profit, then there is a possibility of being sued by the other side of the risk.