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 - 2023 edition) for her exceptional performance for her clients and firms. She was named as an Outstanding Individual in prosecution and strategy (Gold Band) by the World Trademark Review in 2022 and 2023. 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, Haiyan has been listed as a recommended IP Lawyer by The Legal 500. In 2023, 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. Ms. REN is also a sought-after speaker at IP-related seminars and conferences throughout China and has given speeches at various global annual conferences organized by INTA, the International Anti-counterfeiting Coalition and others.

Professional Memberships

INTA

AIPPI

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

Publications

She 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”, “Bad faith trademark filing” (Asialaw Leading Lawyers 2017) and “Becoming more strategic in fighting bad faith filing in China” (Asialaw Leading Lawyers 2018).

Languages Spoken

English & Chinese

Work Highlights

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.

10 Exemplary IP Cases by the Shaanxi Courts: Representing CHANEL in prevailing in the unfair competition suit against a copycat fragrance imitating the iconic trade dress of its CHANEL N°5 perfume. The trial court and the court of appeal unanimously granted protection over the unique trade dress of CHANEL N°5 perfume, ordered cessation and damages.

Representing HAWLEY AND HAZEL, registrant of “DARLIE” and the iconic image depicting a smiling bow-tied black male wearing a top hat in class 3, in invalidating numerous copycat registrations pre-emptively filed in bad faith by trademark squatter in various classes by citing prior copyright.

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 Cases: 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