On the morning of December 30th, hosted by the Central Public Career Development Center and assisted by the Caizhihui program of CCTV Securities News Channel, the Internet Brand Protection Summit began at National Conference Center. During the summit, Central Public Career Development Center announced the full initiation of the protection of China’s Internet brands and businesses of several famous brands, exemplified by “E-Hualu” that officially entered the protection system for the first time. This symbolized the first ever establishment of a protection mechanism that is open to Internet brands all over the world. It meant that, facing the complicated online environment, Chinese businesses would be able to rely on an authoritative and effective protection mechanism in order to prevent the risk of online infringement on their brands.

With the rapid development of the Internet, more and more businesses are paying attention to the ability to spread and the degree of influence of their brands on the Internet. Using means such as domain name of brands and website names to highlight their brands have become the essential strategies for businesses to protect their brands online. For example, when we see the English domain names like “baidu.com”, we will immediately recognize that it belongs to Baidu Company; when we see the Chinese domain names such as (translated) “SummerPalace.charity” and “CommunicationUniversityofChina.charity”, we will be even more certain about the associated brand values. However, the scarcity of Internet domain name as a resource and the “first-come, first-serve” international policy are severely threatening the registration and protection of the domain names of business brands. They also cause problems including domain name preemptive registration, its exploitive use and infringement, to become frequent and make the Internet the new battlefield and war trench of brand protection.

In the year of 2012, the Arbitration and Mediation Center of the International Intellectual Property Organization received in total 2884 complaints of preemptive registration of domain names from 120 countries and involving 5084 domain names. The amount of complaints not only increased by 4.5 since 2011, but also was the highest in the history.
 

At the same time, according to the new project on new Generic Top-level Domain at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), from 2014 and on, the available gTLDs for registration will increase from the current number of 22, including “.com”, “.org” and “.net”, to more than a thousand. Among the new ones, “.online” as one of the first applied gTLDs will be available for registration on January 17th. In the era of Internet in which gTLDs boom, protection of brands are facing more serious challenges.

In this new environment of Internet, with regards to the theme of “Facing challenges cooperatively, and promoting the protection of brands”, professionals and intellectuals at the event discussed intensively. “In the era of the Internet, the brand protection of China is facing challenges never seen before”, said Song Qing, the director of the Electronic Governmental Affairs Center of Central Public Career Development, “and the key to tackle the challenges is an active defense but not passive. Because previously solutions were always made afterwards, businesses now need to sacrifice plenty of time, money, energy, reputation and development, which is troublesome for businesses.”
 

It has become a popular demand that, in order to lead the economic shift of China with the “Power of the Brands”, in the face of the increasingly grave challenge of preemptive registration of domain names and brand infringement, establishment and completion of a protection mechanism of Internet brands should be finished immediately.
 

Therefore, with the State Commission Office for Public Sector Reform’s attention and the support of the State Administration for Industry & Commerce of China, the Central Public Career Development Center bored the important responsibility to protect Chinese brands’ rights on the Internet. After long-term policy follow-up and technical research, the Internet brand protection system was established independently on June 10th this year, realizing the linkage to the Trademark Clearing House (TMCH), a trademark rights protection mechanism introduced by ICANN, and establishing an Internet brand protection network that brings together information service, affair handling and house managing. 
 

The so called information service refers to using means such as inquiry on new gLTDs, and reports on Internet brands surveillance data to provide related information of Internet brand protection. Affair handling refers to resolving plans and mechanisms based on brand protection, including registration of domain names in advance, representing of redemption and dispute resolution. House managing refers to the fully-covered and holistic mechanism of industrial service chain. This mechanism will effectively guarantee a smooth connection in the protection strategies of Internet brands, realizing the protection of Chinese brands on the Internet, and promote the strategic globalization of Chinese brands.