The stronger the rule of law becomes in China, the more cases such as Gooogle’s become the norm. A Chinese company, Beijing Guge Science and Technology Co., sued Google China for using the same Chinese name, Guge (谷歌).

A year ago, the Chinese courts dismissed the case against Google China as Google had registered the name seven days prior to Beijing Guge. More startling was that Google actually responded with a counter-suit and today won 100,000 yuan compensation from the previous lawsuit and ironically forced Beijing Guge to change their own name!

This was a major mistake in their ability to research or a corrupt attempt to forcibly change a foreign company’s name that really came back to bite Beijing Guge. Either way, this is a just another example to show that companies can safely do business in China even when the Chinese government does not like the industry very well.

In any case, would it be too over-the-top to say that Beijing Guge should have used Google for their research on trademark registration dates?