Haiyan Ren

Practice Areas

REN Haiyan is a Partner at Wanhuida Intellectual Property and a Member of the firm’s Management Committee. She is the most experienced trademark attorney of the firm, starting practising as a trademark attorney in 1994 and progressively extending her practice to design patent counseling and strategic planning for integrated IP rights protection.

Career

In 1999, Ms. REN co-founded WAN HUI DA with a number of other experienced attorneys. As one of the founding partners, she has made an indelible contribution to the firm, which has already been ranked as a top tier IP firm by various professional publications. As one of the firm's main representatives, Ms. REN has been nominated as a leading individual practitioner in the field of intellectual property in China. She was included in Managing IP’s Top 250 Women in IP (2020 - 2024 edition) for her exceptional performance for her clients. She was named as an Outstanding Individual in prosecution and strategy (Gold Band) by the World Trademark Review in 2022, 2023 and 2024. Since 2022, she has been inducted in the WTR Global Leaders (Private Practice) three years in a row. She was the Exclusive winner of 2012 International Law Office Client Choice Awards (IP field, China) and an “IP STAR” in China rated by Managing Intellectual Property since 2017. Since 2019, Ms. REN has been listed as a recommended IP Lawyer by Legal500. In 2023 and 2024, she is also listed as an “Eminent Practitioner” by Chambers & Partners in the category of “Intellectual Property: Non-litigation (PRC Firms)”.

In her 30+ years of practice, Ms. REN has handled high-profile cases relating to trademark and design patent filing, registration, litigation and dispute resolution. As the joint head of the firm’s trademark practice group and the managing coordinator for all anti-counterfeiting, infringement and unfair competition cases, she has guided a team of more than 300 trademark and patent attorneys and attorneys-at-law. She has advised numerous Fortune 500 companies on trademark profile auditing, strategic planning for trademark and design protection, domain name disputes, unfair competition cases, IP border protection by Customs and criminal enforcement.

Ms. REN was elected to the International Trademark Association (INTA) China Trademark Office Subcommittee of the Trademark Office Practices Committee for her significant experience in the field. As a sought-after speaker at IP-related seminars and conferences, she has given speeches at various global annual conferences organized by INTA, the International Anti-counterfeiting Coalition and others.

She currently serves as the Co-chair of INTA China Global Advisory Council for the 2024-2025 term.

Professional Memberships

INTA

AIPPI

Special researcher of the Intangible Assets Management and Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL)

Publications

Ms. REN authors or co-authors a dozen articles, with some of her recent articles including: “Several Issues We Should Know in the Battle against Bad-Faith Trademarks in China”, “Becoming more strategic in fighting bad faith filing in China” (asialaw Leading Lawyers 2018) and “Bad faith trademark filing” (asialaw Leading Lawyers 2017).

Languages Spoken

English & Chinese

Work Highlights

Ms. REN has been instrumental in securing favourable results for the firm’s clients in quite a few high-calibre cases:

Representing Decathlon in securing permanent injunction and damages of RMB 2 million in the unfair competition suit against Chinese outdoor sports store Outcool, which copied the store design of Decathlon. The court of appeal affirmed that the Anti-Unfair Competition Law does not prohibit business operators from drawing experience from each other, however, where the borrowing goes beyond the reasonable boundary and escalates into a full-scale imitation of other’s distinctive trade dress and packaging that serves as a source identifier, such act shall be deemed as free-riding and malicious, and unfair competition could be established. The case helps Decathlon win the Unifab Award in the “Enterprise” category in 2023.

Beijing IP Court's 18 exemplary cases concerning bad faith trademark filing (2021): Representing the French winery Chateau Brane-Cantenac in successfully invalidating the preemptive registration of "BRANE CANTENAC" for wines, which was filed by a company that had a special relationship with an agent (in a broad sense) of the client.

CNIPA’s Exemplary Trademark Opposition and Review Cases (2021): Representing The Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac (BNIC) in successfully invalidating a copycat trademark of the Chinese transliteration of its geographical indication collective trademark Cognac in class 33.

Representing BRANDO ENTERPRISES, LP, the company that manages the late actor’s estate, in raising oppositions against the trademark applications of “Marlon Brando” and the Chinese equivalent filed by a local company in class 3 and in obtaining favorable opposition decision from the CNIPA. The CNIPA found that in light of the unrivaled reputation of Mr. Marlon Brando, the registration and use of the trademarks is likely to create association between the goods to which the trademarks are attached and Mr. Marlon Brando, bring confusion among the consumers and result in negative influence on the public interest and order, which breaches Article 10.1.8 of the Trademark Law.

SPC’s Annual Report on Intellectual Property Cases (2015): Representing General Mills in canceling a trademark squatter’s “Wanchai Ferry in Chinese” mark in Class 42. The SPC maintained the second instance decision to cancel the registration and affirmed that single and symbolic use of the trademark for the mere purpose of sustaining its registration cannot justify the registrant’s real intention to use such mark.

Awards