After a four-year tug of war, Evertrust Group (永慶集團), parent of Evertrust Rehouse (永慶房屋), earned the right to use its trade name in Shanghai this month after a Chinese company lost an administrative appeal.
A Chinese company registered Evertrust’s Chinese name, “Yongqing,” before it entered the Shanghai market, forcing Evertrust to operate under a different name there.
Company president Benson Liao (廖本勝) said Evertrust was not sure whether its Chinese counterpart had taken its name with malicious intentions. However, the Chinese company did not actually use the name Yongqing and demanded that Evertrust pay millions of New Taiwan dollars for it to drop the rights to the name.
The realtor was not willing to pay such a large sum.
“We had naively thought that a few hundred thousand would do,” he said.
AUTHORITIES
After negotiations led nowhere, Evertrust appealed to the authorities last year, who investigated and granted the rights to the name to Evertrust on the grounds that the Chinese business did not use the name.
The group now plans to change the Chinese name of its 37 Shanghai outlets from Taiqing Rehouse (台慶) to Yongqing. The outlets had been called Taiqing since 2005, Liao said by telephone on Friday.
“Our four years of investing [in the trade name ‘Taiqing’] will be a complete waste, but we’re happy to have our trade name back and we are there to stay,” Liao said. “It will be a fresh start for us in Shanghai.”
Liao estimated that his company’s Shanghai subsidiary would earn NT$300 million (US$9.3 million) in revenue this year compared with NT$20 million in 2006. He said it is the biggest in Shanghai among several Taiwanese realtors.
‘ACTUAL USE’
Liao said Evertrust won back its trade name around the same time that Taiwan Beer (台啤) was granted its trade name in China.
“We applaud the recognition by authorities, either here or in China, of trade names or marks according to their actual use and not registration,” Liao said.
Meanwhile, Evertrust forecast NT$5 billion in revenue by its 510 outlets in Taiwan this year, up 20 percent from the previous year, he said.
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