On Wednesday 24th July 2024, Hong Kong-based legal magazine China Business Law Journal (CBLJ) releases the winners of its “China Business Law Awards 2024”. The awards are designed to showcase the diversity of talent in the legal services market while offering assistance to in-house readers as they consider and select their legal advisers.
Wanhuida Intellectual Property is ranked in the category of Intellectual Property (Trademark) PRC Firms.
According to CBLJ, Wanhuida had several cases selected as exemplary intellectual property cases by courts in Beijing, Ningbo, Qingdao and Jiangsu, safeguarding clients’ rights through various innovative approaches. One notable case involved representing the Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac (BNIC), an organisation responsible for promoting and protecting the “Cognac” geographical indication, in a lawsuit against Ford China for unfair competition over the “Cognac” geographical indication. Wanhuida helped the client prevail in both instances of court proceedings. The case confirmed that registrants of geographical indication products can take action under the Anti-Unfair Competition Law and broadened the concept of competitive relationships, emphasising that related products or services do not need to be similar as long as there is a simple “association” in the minds of consumers to receive protection.
China Business Law Awards are based on hundreds of applications and thousands of comments from corporate executives, in-house counsel and senior practitioners. The CBLJ research team conducted several months of extensive research and evaluation to determine the winners. During the evaluation stage and drawing on CBLJ’s years of reporting and observation of China’s legal market, candidate firms were closely scrutinised mainly through analysis of three information streams: their own submissions; endorsements from client referees; and valid nominations from the industry, to accurately identify the most outstanding law firms and the top-performing firms in each field.
Wanhuida has been ranked in the China Business Law Awards twelve years in a row.
