Customs recordals

An established German electronics company had been manufacturing their product in China for years. They had signed a strong contract with the Chinese factory manufacturing their goods, however as they did not sell domestically within China, they had not registered their trademarks in China. Recently and out of the blue, they were contacted by Chinese customs telling them that a shipment of their goods from China had been detained as it was suspected of infringing trade mark rights. On further investigation, they discovered that their trade mark had been registered in China by another party and recorded with the customs. This prevented the German SME from exporting their own goods – moreover this was a large shipment and the Customs seizure was causing problems with their supply chain. They suspected that the registrant may have been connected to the factory which they worked with, but they had no proof it.