The Beijing Silk Street Co., a Beijingclothing market that owns Chinas Silk Street Market, has now come up with itsown brand of products, silk scarves, shirts, ties, teacups and other productsin the name "Silk Street". The new Silk Street brand shirts willbe priced for 180 Yuan. This brand is introduced, focused on the profits fromthe foreign visitors for the Olympics. The markets manager has issued awarning that, if any one tries to sell fake Silk street goods, legal actionwould be taken against them. The irony of this declaration is that this marketitself is infamous for selling fake products.
The 'Silk Street Market':
The Silk Street Co. owns a multistory building called "Silk StreetMarket" consisting of hundreds of clothing stores. It is also known as "XiushuiMarket". As the name speaks initially, the market was dealing with silkclothes and traditional products. Later, it became famous for selling fakedesigner brands. Many of the stores in this building deal in selling Burberryand Ralph Lauren fakes. Started in 1985 near luxury hotels, this market isdescribed by the foreign tourists as the third best-known tourist destinationin Beijing. The market owner tries to defend the allegation of selling fakeproducts by stating that fake brand garments are specially 'customized'according the individual customers preference and is not available for salegenerally.
Law suits against the Market:
In 2006, September a law suit wasfiled against Silk Street market for selling fake products by five popular,international luxury brands namely, Burberry, Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton andPrada. Six big boxes with fake garments and handbags bearing internationallogos were brought to the court as proof from various stalls of this market. Theywon 10,000 Yuan ($1,387 USD) as compensation from Silk Street market. This lawsuit has the credit of being the first law suit ever settled in China with sucha settlement, since such type of legal actions are seldom enforced in China. Followingthis, some global sports wear and fashion brands signed an agreement with Beijings retail markets in June 2006, stating not to sell counterfeit bags and clothing. Frenchbrand Lacoste has also filed a law suit against this market and is awaiting theverdict. Despite this, many stores in this market continue to sell fakeproducts.
The manager Mr. Wang states that he wishes popular U.S. brands like North Face to open stores in Silk Street. North Face recently won alawsuit with a hefty compensation of 40,000 Yuan ($5,300 USD) against theirmarket for infringement. He further states that global brands hesitate to openstalls there fearing their brand name will be ruined if associated with themarket. The new Silk Street brand is expected to brew a new pride to the marketand might possibly bring original global branded products in their stalls. Wangsays that the management has come up with new strategies to eliminatecounterfeit goods like offering 20 percent discount for stalls that do not sellfake products. The market administration believes that establishing a brandname would be essential to protect intellectual property rights.
References:
1) http://www.manufacturing.net/
2) http://www.businessweek.com
4) http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/
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