Guanshengyuan brand was founded in 19 18, and 1934 began to produce moon cakes. The founder Xian has invested in more than 20 enterprises all over the country, covering Shanghai, Han, Kunming, Chongqing, An and Tianjin. After liberation, these enterprises were nationalized, and enterprises scattered all over the country operated independently without any assets and operations. Originally, no related enterprises were operating, but they hurt each other after the incident. After the incident, Shanghai and other places were wronged by Guanshengyuan, which most media believe was caused by historical reasons. But historical reasons are only one of the important links, but they are not the whole problem, let alone the root of the problem. From the perspective of intellectual property law, the current Regulations on the Administration of Enterprise Name Registration is the crux of the problem. A spokesperson for Shanghai Guanshengyuan Group once said that there are hundreds of enterprises using the brand name of Guanshengyuan, of which only about 10 is related to the Xian family and independent of each other. There is a question worth thinking about. How can Guanshengyuan Group, which has nothing to do with Xianjia, enjoy the name Guanshengyuan? This actually involves intellectual property knowledge about font size.

The name refers to the trade name, the core content of the company name, the symbol of the company's personality specialization, and the only content in the company name that can be independently selected by the parties. A business name shall consist of two or more Chinese characters or minority languages. According to China's "Regulations on the Administration of Enterprise Name Registration", the name of a production enterprise consists of four parts: the name of the administrative division, the name (trade name), the industry to which it belongs and the organizational form. Take Guansheng Garden in Nanjing as an example. Nanjing district, Guanshengyuan is the font size, food is the industry, and limited company is the organizational form. The only distinguishing word that really works in one place is font size. This refers to the word "Guanshengyuan", because the other three elements in the enterprise name cannot enjoy exclusive functions. However, Article 6 of the Regulations on the Administration of Enterprise Name Registration stipulates that an enterprise name shall not have the same name as the registered one within the jurisdiction of the registration authority. To a certain extent, this allows enterprises in different places to register for production with the same name. At present, domestic enterprise name registration is divided into four levels, namely, county, prefecture, provincial and national. Industrial and commercial departments at all levels are allowed to register without duplicate names within their jurisdiction. In this way, from a national perspective, the coexistence of famous enterprises is inevitable. For example, if there is no Guan Sheng Garden in Chengdu, whether there is one in Shanghai or not, the registration authority in Chengdu can register it. The root cause of "Huadu Incident" in Guangdong a few years ago is exactly the same as this incident, which is the product of the inconsistency between China's current enterprise name registration regulations and the spirit of equal competition in the market economy. Under the condition of market economy, it is impossible to sell goods only within the jurisdiction of the registration authority, so the products of enterprises with the same name in the market will inevitably cause confusion and mistaken purchase by consumers. There is only one Haier in China, and he has branches in many parts of the country, but Haier always has only one unified business entity, and different Haier production enterprises belong to the same family. Why don't many consumers in the country regard many enterprises with the same name as one? In the United States, Germany and other countries, the registration of enterprise names is national rather than local, and its purpose is to avoid unfair competition caused by the same name. The existing enterprise name registration management system in China encourages unfair competition in business. Why do so many enterprises that have nothing to do with the initial establishment of Guan Sheng in Xi 'an use this name? Most of them just want to cling to the old brand "Guanshengyuan" and survive with the reputation of the strong under their own incompetence. After China's entry into WTO, China enterprises will face more intense competition. We should see the disadvantages of the current enterprise registration management system and the side that is not conducive to fair competition among enterprises. It is not comprehensive to analyze the Guanshengyuan incident only from the quality issue, and it is not comprehensive to attribute the reasons of the enterprises with the same name to history, which fails to grasp the root of the problem.

Second, the report did not pay enough attention to the negative effects.

Guanshengyuan in Nanjing has nothing to do with Guanshengyuan in Shanghai. At first, consumers didn't know it from the related reports of Guanshengyuan incident, but from the report that Guanshengyuan with the same name was later called an unjust case. This can't help but make people reflect on a problem. Did the reporter realize at the beginning that if we don't distinguish Nanjing Guanshengyuan from other Guanshengyuan, it will cause potential harm to the enterprises with the same name? After the report, the majority of sellers and consumers regard Nanjing Guanshengyuan and Shanghai Guanshengyuan as a family. Should reporters distinguish them apart from the reasons of the same name and surname? If the report itself does not distinguish between the two, readers will naturally put them together for evaluation. Among the four elements of a manufacturer's name, font size plays a difficult role in identifying the other three elements. Wahaha, for example, has its own enterprises in Hangzhou, Shandong and Chongqing, which are trans-regional. The key to distinguish products from different manufacturers lies in grasping the prominent part of the enterprise name-the font size, which is also the reason why consumers do not distinguish different manufacturers by place names such as "Nanjing" and "Shanghai". As a result, after the report of Nanjing Guanshengyuan comes out, it will inevitably hurt the enterprises with the same name.

A few years ago, the products of an internationally renowned American beverage company had quality problems in France, which were reported by the global media one after another, but it did not lead to the shrinking of the global market of its products. Although the production of the company's branch in Europe has been adversely affected, it has not affected all enterprises in the world. On the contrary, the moon cake incident in Nanjing affected not only the enterprises with the same name, but also all colleagues in the country. After the exposure of Nanjing Guanshengyuan incident, it will definitely have a certain negative impact on peers, but people don't want to see it. Suppose that even though Guanshengyuan in Nanjing is the same as Guanshengyuan in Shanghai, Wuhan and Tianjin, is there any reason for our report to have such a negative impact? Can't such negative effects be avoided as much as possible? The product quality of manufacturers located in different regions cannot be exactly the same, so we should pay attention to prevent readers from generalizing. If the media realize this, they should warn the audience in the report that the quality problem of a product in Nanjing Guanshengyuan does not mean that all manufacturers have problems with the quality of moon cakes. Nanjing Guanshengyuan has no direct relationship with other Guanshengyuan manufacturers. If a report doesn't notice this, people will treat all Guanshengyuan as a family after reading the report. When the media reveals the truth, it is also linking others to some extent. Shanghai Guanshengyuan sued a newspaper for this reason. Legal newspapers at home and abroad are very cautious when reporting objects with the same name, and always add more attributes before the name to avoid being confused with other people with the same name in the area involved, damaging the reputation of others and being sued by the parties. Our reporter didn't pay much attention to this when reporting the product quality of the company with the same name. This also reflects that our reporters are not strong enough in legal protection awareness while exposing problems.

Third, I didn't notice the problems of Guanshengyuan enterprise itself.

At present, the problem of different font sizes in China cannot be completely solved by the existing laws. However, under the condition that the existing legal norms are not scientific enough, as an enterprise, it should try to avoid passivity and seek initiative in its operation. Although it is difficult to solve the problem of font size at the moment, the situation may be different if you know something about the relevant intellectual property rights in enterprise operation. After the incident, Shanghai Guanshengyuan once said that Guanshengyuan registered Guanshengyuan brand for cakes, but Guanshengyuan brand was the first moon cake registered in Wuhan Guanshengyuan. So now Guanshengyuan uses the "Sheng" brand to make moon cakes. In addition, after the incident, Shanghai Guanshengyuan also warned consumers in some media that its moon cakes used the "Sheng" trademark, and its purpose was nothing more than to draw a clear line with the moon cakes of Nanjing Guanshengyuan. If the current Regulations on the Administration of Enterprise Name Registration makes it difficult for consumers to draw a clear line between enterprises with the same name, are there any other ways and means? The current trademark system can make up for this deficiency to a great extent. Brand name is a sign that producers and operators distinguish each other. Consumers choose products from different manufacturers by distinguishing operators, while trademarks are used to distinguish different manufacturers and distributors. After the Nanjing Guanshengyuan incident, consumers regarded different Guanshengyuan as a whole, which showed that consumers mainly relied on the identification of the font size when buying goods, and trademarks played little role in distinguishing. It can be seen from relevant reports that Guanshengyuan in Shanghai has long been deeply influenced by enterprises of the same name. Why not try to distinguish the products of other Guanshengyuan manufacturers through the trademark "Sheng" earlier? In the reports, most of the media expressed sympathy for enterprises affected by collective punishment, which is appropriate, but they did not pay enough attention to the protection of intellectual property rights to avoid confusion in their own operations.

News reports have the function of public opinion supervision, and the exposure of Nanjing Guanshengyuan incident is generally a good thing, and this kind of report itself should be protected by law. However, the report itself is to expose the problem, not to amplify it. If reporting a problem of an enterprise causes damage to the whole industry, it can't be said to be a successful report anyway. However, this report has created such a reality that individual media have become defendants in this incident. Any revealing report itself has a negative effect, especially in the economic field, which directly involves the economic interests of related peers. When Nanjing Guanshengyuan reported that Chinese people fluctuated greatly, the press did not see the crux of the name registration system, failed to grasp the weakness of intellectual property knowledge of enterprises, and failed to lead the problem to a deeper level. Intellectual property plays an important role in the world economy and trade. After China's entry into the WTO, China enterprises must learn to use the relevant rules of intellectual property rights to protect themselves. The intellectual property problems exposed in Guanshengyuan incident not only let us see some problems in the current system, but also let the press see their own shortcomings in this respect and see the great influence of intellectual property on a country's economy, which may be a good thing. In the long run, it is a good thing for the press to experience this lesson before China joined the WTO.

I'm from the Law Department of Zhejiang University. I want to have a try. I want to know what the analysis results are.