Trademark Infringement in World MarketsThis case discusses the continual obstacles facing the movie industry today. There are numerous countries around the world that carry out various forms of trademark infringement. This quandary, causes billions of dollars in losses every year for the companies involved, therefor there have been varied attempts to put a stop to this rampant underworld of criminal activity.Particularly, in Southeast Asia well-known global companies are frequently the victims of trademark violations and product counterfeiting. An example of this phenomenon is in South Korea, where they sell a chewing gum called JUICY FRESH, which has the same yellow wrapper, black lettering ...view middle of the document...
" Another reason is the "hands off" policy of local law enforcement agencies. Although the South Korean government passed trademark, patent and copyright protection laws in the late 1980's, enforcement is still lax.The issue of PROPERTY RIGHTS is especially problematic in China. In 1994, the Clinton administration considered launching an investigation to determine whether US companies had been hurt by piracy and trademark infringement. Under section 301 of the US TRADE ACT it states that any findings of harm can lead to trade sanctions. To head off such confrontation, China has passed stringent laws against counterfeiting. The International Intellectual Property Alliance estimates that Chinese counterfeiting of copyrighted materials alone costs U.S companies$800 million annually; and that excludes trademark and patent infringement.In the fall of 1994, Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and 6 other U.S movie companies filed a joint suit against a Chinese video distributor. The filmmakers asked the Beijing Intermediate Peoples Court to stop distributors from selling illegal laser disc copies of various hit movies. Each of the eight studios joining in the suit received due compensation in damages as well as legal costs. During this time, the U.S and Chinese trade officials were in the midst of ongoing talks. The U.S wanted the Chinese government to close more than two dozen CD plants that produce pirated music and movie discs. The piracy issue threatened to diminish China's chances of joining the WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION.There have been other methods used, to deal with the video piracy problems. Which helped to reduce the problem significantly, however nothing yet has proven successful enough as to eradicate the problem entirely.In the questions following the case study, it discusses the legal woes that might affect a person that comes form a common-law country trying to protect intellectual property right in a code-law country. There are many factors to...
