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"The Dandong strawberries you eat may come from Jiangsu." Recently, a Weibo blogger revealed that the Dandong strawberries that some fruit e-commerce companies claim to be selling are actually Jiangsu strawberries sold by other distributors in the name of "separate warehouse delivery". Jiangsu Strawberry's counterfeiting of Dandong Strawberry reflects the current dilemma of brand protection of famous and high-quality fruits in our country, facing the real problems of disputed trademark infringement determination, low usage rate of geographical indications and trademark icons, and high cost of rights protection. How should regional famous and high-quality fruits protect themselves? Recently, lawyer Deng Xu of JAVY Law Firm was interviewed by Beijing Radio and Television "1039 Morning Post" and gave a detailed interpretation of the incident.

（Pictures from Internet）

Why are some famous and high-quality fruits always sold by "hitch-hiking"? Some experts said that if it is a non-geographical indication product that uses a geographical indication, its price and reputation will rise, the corresponding cost will be very low, and the profit margin will be very large.

There are certain obstacles in the protection of geographical indication rights, and it is cross-regional. Many geographical indication products go to the whole country. We need to protect our rights. We may have to go out of the local area and carry out nationwide rights protection nationwide, which increases the difficulty of rights protection and the difficulty of obtaining evidence.

The third is the diversification of infringing subjects, including some large e-commerce platforms and supermarkets, as well as some terminal retail investors.

The quality and price of counterfeit products may be lower than "genuine" products, which will greatly damage the reputation of famous and high-quality fruits. To make ordinary consumers mistakenly believe that the name of the fruit is not true, the protection of famous and high-quality fruit is imminent. In addition, if consumers protect their rights, they will naturally face the dilemma of high cost of rights protection.

At present, the biggest difficulty in protecting the rights of geographical indication(GI) products is that the cost of rights protection is relatively high. For GI rights holders, there are mainly two ways to protect their rights. The first is to file a civil lawsuit in the people's court. The second is to request the market supervision and management department to investigate and deal with the corresponding illegal acts. No matter which method is adopted, it is necessary to go to the place of infringement to protect rights. Fruits and some foods are perishable and deteriorated, and the shelf life is not long. If a civil lawsuit is to be filed, the evidence must be fixed by notarization, so that the lawsuit can be better carried out.

Whether it is a civil lawsuit or an administrative reporting method, it is necessary to obtain the individual information of the infringing traders, which is a big difficulty for our consumers. For ordinary illegal traders, it is difficult for the rights holder to prove them. The amount of sales or the amount of its own loss is large, so the final compensation amount and administrative penalty amount will not be too high.

Some experts believe that famous and high-quality fruits are more likely to be counterfeited, because agricultural and sideline products are mostly produced and sold from small and micro enterprises or individuals. It is a kind of seller that is scattered and small, so its management difficulty, its governance difficulty, and its difficulty in cracking down on infringement are relatively large.

How to further strengthen the protection of famous and high-quality fruits with geographical indications? The State Intellectual Property Office has formulated relevant management measures in 2021, and proposed to carry out special actions for the protection of geographical indications, strengthen administrative law enforcement and coordinated protection in the field of geographical indications, disclose typical cases with social influence, strengthen supervision and management, and create a good business environment. Some experts also believe that it is necessary to refine the identification rules of geographical indication products.

At present, it is a common practice to implement the protection of geographical indications through technical means and the use of unique packaging to prevent counterfeiting. Relevant departments and e-commerce platforms must also strengthen cooperation, perform their respective duties, and resolutely crack down on counterfeit products, so as to maintain the long-term value of the brand and a fair market environment. Only when the government strengthens law enforcement and industry associations do a good job in standardizing, can the forces be twisted together and the regional specialties can be better protected.