Japan Firm To Trademark Burning, Killing and Looting In China

[Mulboyne]

China Daily: 'Three-alls' to be trademarked by Japanese firm
The 'three-alls', which was a policy of "burn all, kill all, loot all" that Japanese invading troops implemented during World War II in China, is under application for registry as a trademark in China by Japanese company Fujian Industry Co Ltd (Fujian Chanye Zhushihuishe), the Contemporary Gold newspaper reported Thursday. Ma, a manager at the Yujia Trademark Office in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, was surprised to see the 'three-alls' on the list of brand applications on the Internet Wednesday morning, with the applicant being a Japanese company..."There are only 19 days until the deadline on Aug 28," Ma said. "Everyone with faintest knowledge of history knows what the 'three-alls' means. But the company is planning to use the phrase to promote 'medicine, officinal drinks and nutrients for human use'"...more...

Wikipedia entry on Three Alls Policy here. I haven't verified whether Fujian Industry is actually a Japanese company.

[makenai]

According to this, it's a Sino-Australian jont:

http://www.made-in-china.com/showroom/aolanchina

"Aolan (Fujian) Industry Co Ltd, a Sino-Australian joint-venture established in 1998, is a leading manufacturer of evaporative air coolers in China."

I don't suppose that will ever be mentioned by the Chinese papers though.

[Mulboyne]

I'm not sure that is the same company. For one, their business is different from the "medicinal drinks" mentioned in the trademark case. If you search for 三光政策 in baidu.com news then you get articles like this which, if my non-existent Chinese is any guide, refer to 福见产业株式会社.

[amdg]

Yes, if it is a Japanese company they don't seem to have a trademark presence at all in Japan, according to the JPO database. But that might not mean anything - it could be a new company after all, or they could operate under a different name in Japan.

I'd be suprised if the source mentioned in your extract Mulboyne (links busted) at the Trademark Office incorrectly reported the origin of the company though...

[amdg]

[Socratesabroad]

According to this, it's a Sino-Australian jont:

http://www.made-in-china.com/showroom/aolanchina

"Aolan (Fujian) Industry Co Ltd, a Sino-Australian joint-venture established in 1998, is a leading manufacturer of evaporative air coolers in China."

I'm not sure that is the same company.

Mulboyne's on the money here. The company above is actually Aolan: following standard practice here in China, the firm's location - Fujian Province 福]Fujian Industry Co Ltd[/b]

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I did some checking, and here's the original story in Chinese: http://news.sohu.com/20060810/n244713982.shtml

The Japanese company is 福见产业株式会社, which is in fact Japanese, but they did have a Chinese representative ("The company that helped the Japanese company register" in the Eng. art.) helping with trademark registration.

Major Fact 1:
Sadly, the C-representative wasn't much help since he didn't think the TM would violate the law - 我想这并不违反商标法，否则国家商标局也不会予以批准。 So he blamed the whole mess on, guess who, the Japanese. Apparently, "the customer is always right" - 客户有要求，我们也没有办法。- and they failed to make their goals clear - implying inability in the Chinese language or failure to understand Chinese 'culture' - when the two sides met:我们在当初接下代理的时候也并不清楚对方目的，就这样报上去了。

Major Fact 2:
The Chinese trademark authority's astonishment at a J-company trying to register 三光 and the C-representative's claim that 三光 is unregistered are pure and utter bullshit: a number of C-companies already use 三光 - in the company name, products, etc.:

苏州三光科技有限公司
三光实业有限公司
三光化成塑胶 (which looks like a J-subsid)

In the end, this question wasn't whether a company could trademark "三光" in China but whether a J-company could. The answer just serves to illustrate how far China has to go before becoming truly 'open.'