Sign of the times

There are now a raft of Chinese-language internet domains, many aimed at business. But which is which, what do they actually mean, and which should you register under? Wonder no more with our guide to China’s top-level domains.

Here are some facts about China you may or may not know: it is now the world’s largest economy – both online and offline; its language characters will soon be accepted as international trademarks by the World Intellectual Property Organization; it has a “first to file” trademark law; it has the most top-level domains outside English; and it has one timezone despite stretching across five.

All five of these facts help explain why the internet domain ‘.깃’ – Chinese for ‘trademark’ – has recently launched into an increasingly crowded field that includes ’.貢囹’ (web address), ‘무鱇’ (business organization), ‘.瞳窟’ (online), ‘.貢쭹’ (network), ‘.櫓匡貢’ (website), and ‘.섞考’ (corporate group). And these are in addition to the terms for ‘shopping mall’, ‘world’, ‘mobile’ and ‘I love you’ – that last one requiring a little extra understanding of Chinese culture.

With China now the largest economy in the world, it has become increasingly important for companies large and small to enter the market, whether to take advantage of low-cost, high-volume production or to tap into a society that is increasingly affluent. This is especially true when it comes to the internet: Chinese consumers spend 31 per cent of their disposable income online, compared with a global average of 22 per cent. All of the world’s largest internet companies – Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, eBay – are increasingly concerned by their Chinese competition (respectively: Baidu, Renren, Tencent, Weibo and Alibaba).

That enormous growth and the threat to global players leads to the second fact: that WIPO will soon accept Chinese characters as trademarks.

It is a common misconception that China does nothing to combat counterfeiting and trademark infringement. In fact, it has strict rules that it largely enforces. It also recently changed those rules to better reflect the global economy that it now leads. The sheer size of the Chinese economy however makes it difficult to supervise, which in turn makes it an attractive market to target.

While all citizens are taught English in school, Chinese characters are really the only way to communicate. As a result, many corporations have carefully translated their brands and trademarks into Chinese characters that make sense to the average consumer. Coca-Cola is frequently held out as the company that has done the best job of this, turning ‘Coca-Cola’ into ‘Kekoukele’ . Academic papers have even been written about the soda company’s “perfect” translation (basically it is easy to write, sounds good and has the broad sense of “good and fine drink”). But as you can see from the graphic to the right, there is no ® symbol after the name that millions of people now associate with a particular type of refreshing cola drink.

A few other examples: Nike: 켐옹; Adidas: 각둑댐薑; Pepsi: 겟慤옵있; Microsoft: 菓흡; Google: 믄멱; Gucci: 뮴넴; you get the idea.

WIPO’s decision is therefore simply catching up with the market.

Coca-Cola and its Chinese version (not trademarked)

Now, if you hold a Chinese trademark and wish to market in China, it makes little sense to advertise: ‘켐옹.com’ in much the same way American consumers would be befuddled by a web address like ‘nike.瞳窟’.

But before getting to the issue of Chinese domains, the third fact:  the Chinese trademark system is a “first to file” system rather than the Western system of common law, where a person registering a trademark also has to show they’ve used, or plan to use the mark in business.

This approach has created a difficult, and often expensive situation for Western companies who turn up in China to find that their trademark is already owned, legally, by someone else.

Apple settled out of court for $60m over the trademark for ‘iPad’, after the company which owned the mark applied to have Apple’s iPads withdrawn from sale for infringing its rights. Tesla reached a similar settlement with businessman Zhan Baosheng. Some brands have even lost in court, including Pfizer’s Viagra brand. luxury retailer Hèrmes and whisky brand Chivas Regal.

And that’s how we arrive at Chinese-language domain names.

“In China you are more likely to get traction with the courts if you have as much evidence as possible that you do own and control your brand name,” explains Simon Cousins of Allegravita, who specializes in advising Western companies about how to approach China. “If you have your brand in a Chinese domain name, it’s a point of evidence in court. It’s cheap insurance.”

And it is for this reason – as well as offering a portal to your Chinese customers – that Chinese-language domains are the second and fourth most popular new internet extensions for corporations (after ‘.reviews’ in first and ‘.support’ in third), according to brand protection company MarkMonitor.

So, problem solved, you simply register your name under those two domains and your Chinese domain strategy is set, with the added bonus of additional trademark protection in case you go to court.

If only.

This is an excerpt of a longer article on Chinese-language domain names. If you wish to read the full article, please pick up a copy of the magazine at one of the industry events or subscribe to IoN magazine. 

Figures as of April 2015

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