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| China, known to replicate everything except human-beings, are once again giving nightmares to the Korean food industry. /by Kim Youngchan |
Fake Salt·Ramen·Glass noodles
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| ‘Cheongdo Taeyangcho’’, the Chinese company, labels Korean Brands with mockups of Korean designs and Korean letters. They are known to distribute fake goods across china on and offline. /by Kim Youngchan |
The Korean victims taking legal actions against Chinese violators are putting an emphasis on the gravity of the issue to the Chinese court. On the 7th of this month, CJ CheilJedang, Daesang, Samyang and Ottogi joined hands and formed a consultative body to protect their respective intellectual property rights by taking the legal measures in China.
The consultative body has filed a lawsuit against Chinese company ‘Cheongdo Taeyangcho’ to protect its intellectual property. ‘Cheongdo Taeyangcho’’s imitation goods that circulate across china on/offline with the Korean brand labels attatched with mockups of Korean designs.
The Korea's K-food big names' consultative body has specified that the Chinese snatched up ‘Buldak stir-fried noodles(Samyang)’ ‘Seasoning, Salt, Sugar(CJ CheilJedang)’ ‘Seasoning, Anchovy fish sauce and seaweed(Daesang) ‘Glass noddles(Ottogi)’ from Korea's genuine manufacturers.
In the case of Samyang Food’s Buldak-stir-fried noodles, the character ‘Hochi’ was used and even the name of the product ‘Buldak-bokkeummyeon’ was copied in Korean letters. In case of CJ, the wrapping paper turned out to be almost exact-alike. Daesang's Seasoning/anchovy fish sauce/seaweeds were also imitated, and the Korean brand 'Masanai' was used without any license.
“The lawsuit is significant in that major Korean labels vying for the top notch in domestic and global market, voluntarily united and launched a joint response” said Lee Hyo-yul, the chief of the consultative body. “We will do our best to win the case and set a landmark as a warning sign” he added. It filed the lawsuit on the 30th of December 2021, and the case is expected to take about a year long.
According to the consortium, China's Cheongdo Taeyangcho illegally copied trademarks and design, and started to use them as part of their brand. While serving as vendor company, the Chinese imitator secured a big portion of pie by eliminating its competitors that also sell the fake goods.
Sim Hyun-soo, an official from the Korea foods industry association said “based on the guidelines set up by the organization, we are currently collecting evidence to win the case”. He stressed “the imitation in the food industry is an obstacle for those who wish to enter the market late”. “Thus, various efforts both from the public and private sector is highly needed” he added.
Conglomerates also suffer from imitation… Trademark thief viral
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| Trademark infringement damages in total /graphic=Kim Youngchan |
According to the documents the Lawmaker Lee Ju-whan(PPP/Busan), a member of the congress' committee for trade, industry and energy, obtained from the KIPO(Korean Intellectual Property Office), the number of illegal imitation cases saw an increase of 3.5 times, starting at 977 back in 2017 to 3457 cases in 2020.
The cases reported are 977 cases(2017), 1666 cases(2018), 1486 cases(2019), 3457 cases(2020), 1998cases(~August 2021). In particular, in 2020 alone, when the COVID-19 went viral, the number of thefts is reportedly more than doubled compared to the precious year.
The Chinese imitation has severely damaged Korean outlets, causing the damages to the amount of 33.3 billion KRW, including ▲6 billion KRW(2017) ▲11.6 billion KRW(2018) ▲7.5 billion KRW(2019) ▲5 billion KRW(2020) ▲3.2 billion KRW(~Aug 2021).
As the fake circulates, not only does it reduce the actual exports from Korea, but also deteriorates the profit-structure. In general, launching a new product requires huge research and development costs and a long period of time. Companies develop other products with the profits they earned from the well-sold products. However, illegal imitation destroys such cycle.
In the past, Korea's victims had no choice but to suffer from the Chinese fake-goods. This is because it’s difficult for an individual label to speak up and ask for a punishment to the Chinese authority, considering the cost and manpower required. Moreover, there is big questionmark whether such action will lead to a rectification in China. An official from the industry recalled “In fact, there weren’t a lot of choices we could take as the immitations were done circumventing the law”. “Moreover, COVID19 made it much harder for us to police the mockups” he elaborated.
China explodes with cultural inferiority
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| Suspected Trademark infringement damages by year /graphic=Kim Youngchan |
However, a distorted perception on Korean products roam across China. China's claims of ownership over kimchi and hanbok were made by its state-run-media outlets. In fact, a Chinese ambassador claimed he has every rights to claim Kimchi as Chinese dish, via his/her SNS. Later, it turned out the SNS was state-run account.
Seo Kyung-duk, professor of liberal arts at Sungshin Women's University, said "China has a complex of cultural inferiority, especially to Korea” “We need to establish a system to deal with K-food imitation so that such counterfeit will no longer stay in the market”