LeTV maneuvers to turn the tables in exclusive rights filing

While many major smartphone players are promoting their latest full-screen products - the iPhone X, the Samsung Galaxy S8, the Vivo X20 and the Xiaomi Mi Mix2 among them - industry insiders say it appears LeTV has been quietly maneuvering to try to corner the market.

Insiders say that the debt-laden and crisis-hit group is trying to grab the exclusive rights to use the full-screen smartphone concept in China by registering a trademark.

However, legal experts doubted that the maneuver was likely to succeed.

A Tianjin-based subsidiary of LeTV filed a trademark application at the State Administration for Industry and Commerce in March, using the Chinese translation of "full screen."

It covers categories including smartphones, projection screens, remote control devices and other interactive terminals.

The application is pending approval.

Zhao Zhanling, a researcher on intellectual property studies at the China University of Political Science and Law, told the National Business Daily that if a company has successfully registered the "full screen" trademark, it can prevent its competitors from using it in the same category of products.

Additionally, if rivals use the name without authorization, the trademark owner can ask for compensation by fi ling lawsuits.

Zhao added, however, that it would be difficult for the trademark to be approved.

"A registered trademark has to be prominent enough," he explained.

"The words 'full screen' is a description of how the smartphone display looks, which shows little prominence."

Liu Kai, an IP lawyer at Hunan Wensheng Law Firm, said that "full screen" was a loose definition of a smartphone design featuring a super-big screen-to-body size ratio.

Liu said it was becoming a general term in the industry. Therefore, even if the trademark was approved, other companies could appeal the decision to the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board to invalidate it.

According to the Trademark Law of China, the owner of a trademark has no right to prohibit other people from using in normal use the common name, logo or model contained in the relevant trademark or the quality, principal raw materials, functions, uses, weight, quantity, geographic name or other features that are explicitly expressed in the registered trademark.

Another Chinese leading phonemaker, Huawei, in August filed a similar trademark application for "Entire-View Display" - which virtually means "full screen" - at the European Union Intellectual Property Office. That application is also under examination now.

Huawei told the National Business Daily that the purpose of the trademark application was for protection and to prevent "unnecessary future business disputes," rather than to charge licensing fees.

The full-screen design is now an obvious trend in the smartphone sector, although a commonly agreed definition of that concept has yet to be reached.

Generally, it is believed that Sharp developed the first full-screen smartphone - the Aquos Crystal - in 2014.

But at that time, it was called an "edgeless design".

Xiaomi made the concept of "full screen" popular when promoting its Mi Mix in 2016.

(China Daily 10/26/2017 page17)