Shanghai Fashion Week wins trademark approval

Ti Gong

The logo, graphic and text of “Shanghai Fashion Week” have completed official trademark registration, a major move to protect intellectual property rights and improve the business environment for the fashion design industry.

From the original “clothes cultural festival” 25 years ago, Shanghai Fashion Week is now an annual fashion gala that features runway shows from Chinese designers and numerous events by major international brands, along with trade fairs, forums, competitions, presentations from up-and-coming talent and a multitude of showrooms.

It has built several of Asia’s largest fashion trade fairs, which attract more than 1,100 brands from 30 countries and regions, as well as over 40,000 buyers and industry insiders every year. As an incubator for young, local designers, the event has fostered more than 300 made-in-China designers, who have earned international acclaim.

“The successful trademark registration sets a milestone for Shanghai Fashion Week,” said Tong Jisheng, chairman of Orient International (Holding) Co, the event's main organizer. “It shows the country’s determination to protect intellectual property rights and to create a healthy, sound business environment for designers and local brands.”

However, the road to trademark registration was not a smooth one. Since 2003, the committee of Shanghai Fashion Week had applied several times for trademark registration, but all were rejected by the National Intellectual Property Administration because “Shanghai” is a city name and “fashion” a general term.

In 2013, an application was launched again, and this time it changed the procedure with the brand’s graphic first, which was approved in 2015.

Later, with the joint efforts of the Shanghai Commission of Commerce, the Shanghai Cooperation Center for Trademark Examination and other departments, the brand “Shanghai Fashion Week,” with its graphic and text as a whole, was approved as a national registered trademark in March.

With the high-speed development of the country’s fashion industry, Shanghai is forging ahead to built itself into a global fashion hub.

Statistics from the city's commerce commission show that more than 800 major fashion brands chose the city to open their first store last year, and over 3,000 brands made world debuts of their new collections in Shanghai.

“Shanghai Fashion Week has been listed into the city’s development strategy,” said Liu Min, deputy director of the Shanghai Commission of Commerce. “The city will be sparing no effort to develop the first-store economy and encourage more designers to settle down, offering the effective protection of intellectual property.”