Trademark Registration
Mamirobot, a robot cleaner manufacturer, is having trouble exporting its products to the United States due to a mistake in the trademark registration process.
According to industry sources, the company attempted to register its trademark in the US, only to fail late last year. The reason was that its brand name was too similar to that of American robot cleaner brand IRobot. The judge ruled that the two brand names had a high level of similarity with just three letters added to the front of an existing brand name.
The Korean firm, which had made years of preparation to enter the US market, was baffled. “There is no similarity between the two names except for the common noun of robot,” it lamented, adding, “The judgment makes no sense at all and it is nothing but a pretext to protect American companies.” Park Kwang-hoon, head of the US branch of the company, stressed, “Both of the firms are engaged in robot manufacturing and thus there is no problem for them to both have the word robot in their corporate names.” He went on, “It is sure that the ban on the use of our brand name serves the purpose of blocking us from entering the market.”
Meanwhile, international trade experts are showing a different opinion, that is, that the Korean firm should have conducted a thorough survey in advance as to whether or not it could use its brand name in the US. “If a similar brand name is already present and the use is not allowed, setting up a new brand suffices,” said one of them, continuing, “Mamirobot did not carry out the survey and just wasted its time.”
At present, Mamirobot is establishing a new brand dedicated to the US market. Its idea is that any lawsuit against the local authorities or corporations would cost more than creating a new brand.