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recently, a product called "meicheng mooncake" promoted by several top anchors including xiao yangge has been questioned. when promoting and selling this brand of mooncakes in the live broadcast room, it was called "hong kong brand", but in fact its trademark was registered in hong kong last year, and the place of production is in guangdong.

guangzhou meicheng food technology co., ltd., located in shiling town, huadu district, guangzhou, is the manufacturer of meicheng mooncakes. photo by chen xuhou, a reporter from the paper

if a company registers in hong kong and then produces and sells products in the mainland, would it be considered a "hong kong brand"?

chen jun, a partner of anhui tianhe law firm, has been deeply involved in the field of intellectual property for many years and is the director of the intellectual property committee of the anhui lawyers association. in an interview with the paper, he believed that the establishment of a brand is based on product sales and promotion activities. if there is no substantial business operation in hong kong, but only a registered trademark is held, then the relevant products can only be identified as products with hong kong registered trademarks, rather than "hong kong brands."

chen jun said that given that mainland consumers have a certain tendency to consume brands from hong kong or international brands, some businesses will take advantage of this mentality and entrust third-party professional institutions to register companies and trademarks in hong kong at a lower cost. later, when selling products in the mainland market, some businesses will use "hong kong brands" as a marketing tool to increase the company's profitability.

chen jun introduced the cases of "routine trademarks" he had handled, saying that in the actual operation process, two situations are usually encountered. the first situation is that, as in the recent "meicheng mooncake" incident that was questioned, although the business activities were all carried out in the mainland, because the trademark was registered in hong kong, it claimed to be a "hong kong brand". such behavior is suspected of false advertising to a certain extent. consumers and competitors have the right to report to the market supervision and management department, and the law enforcement agency will investigate and deal with it according to law. the second situation involves the mainland business entity's desire to establish a connection with a well-known brand in the mainland. however, due to the inability to successfully register the same trademark in the mainland and the inability to use the same corporate name as the well-known brand when registering the company, these entities turn to the convenient conditions of hong kong company registration. in hong kong, the registered capital does not need to be actually paid and verified, and there are almost no restrictions on the scope of business and address. in addition, the company is free to name, and can use impressive words such as "international" and "group", and even use the same font size as the well-known brands in the mainland. therefore, these entities register companies in hong kong and use the same company name as the well-known brands in the mainland. finally, they put labels such as "produced by a certain company in hong kong" and "trademark licensee of a certain company in hong kong" on their products, trying to blur the line between themselves and well-known mainland brands.

"such cases involve both unfair competition such as false advertising and trademark infringement," said chen jun.

many netizens believe that merchants who package themselves as "foreign brands" are "taking advantage of loopholes". in response, chen jun said that for the above two situations, the current relevant legal provisions mainly include the following:

(1) article 8 of the anti-unfair competition law provides that business operators shall not make false or misleading commercial advertisements about the performance, function, quality, sales status, user evaluation, honors, etc. of their products in order to deceive or mislead consumers.

(2) article 58 of the trademark law clearly states that if another person’s registered trademark or unregistered well-known trademark is used as the name of an enterprise, misleading the public and constituting unfair competition, it shall be dealt with in accordance with the anti-unfair competition law.

(3) article 20 of the consumer protection law provides that when business operators provide consumers with information on the quality, performance, use, validity period, etc. of goods or services, they must ensure the authenticity and completeness of the information and must not engage in false or misleading publicity.

the paper previously reported that a product called "meicheng mooncake" that crazy little yangge and his anchor recently promoted attracted attention from the outside world because the anchor emphasized the word "hong kong" when introducing the mooncake during the live broadcast, but whether the mooncake is a traditional hong kong brand was questioned. subsequently, the media confirmed from the manufacturer that the mooncake was produced in guangdong and is not currently sold in hong kong.

the paper found that the brand operator of meicheng mooncakes is guangzhou meicheng food co., ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "guangzhou meicheng food company"), and the manufacturer is guangzhou meicheng food technology co., ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "guangzhou meicheng technology company"), both of which are located in huadu district, guangzhou. the two companies claim that their parent company is hong kong meicheng food group co., ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "hong kong meicheng group company").

it is worth noting that guangzhou meicheng technology co., ltd. was registered in 2014, and hong kong meicheng group co., ltd. was registered in 2019. hong kong meicheng group co., ltd. registered a number of mooncake-related trademarks containing the word "meicheng" and patterns in hong kong in 2023 and 2024. among them, the trademark with the word "hong kong meicheng mooncake" was registered on september 22, 2023, which is almost one year old.

facing the question of "meicheng mooncakes are not available in hong kong", the paper consulted the customer service of the official online store of meicheng mooncakes in the name of a consumer. the customer service replied that the brand is registered in hong kong and has a trademark registration certificate. it has established marketing centers and production bases in guangzhou and foshan. when asked where the mooncakes are from, the customer service replied that they are from guangdong.

on september 14, according to the business registration address, the paper reporter visited guangzhou meicheng food co., ltd. and found that the address was vacant. at the entrance of guangzhou meicheng food technology co., ltd., a staff member of the company replied to the paper that they would record the concerns of the outside world about whether meicheng mooncakes are sold in hong kong, whether they are sold for more than 200 yuan offline, and whether its hong kong company is a shell company, and then give a unified reply. afterwards, the paper called a person in charge of the company, who said that he was too busy at the moment and could only communicate with the media later.

many netizens believe that the anchor's sales pitch misleads consumers into thinking that meicheng mooncakes are a traditional hong kong brand, or even produced in hong kong, which is misleading. in this regard, a lawyer believes that if the anchor's sales pitch misleads consumers, and the brand is registered in hong kong but has little connection with local hong kong products, it is suspected of violating the provisions of the advertising law, is highly misleading, and may constitute false advertising, or even consumer fraud.

the paper noted that the douyin account of meicheng mooncakes has stopped live streaming to promote its products. only one video is visible on the account, and the other videos are suspected to be hidden or deleted. on the evening of september 14, crazy brother yang did not start live streaming at 7pm on saturday as usual. currently, the display window of brother yang's douyin account has removed the related products of meicheng mooncakes.

according to red star news, the guangzhou huadu district market supervision administration and the douyin platform have intervened in the investigation of the incident.