Innovation is the key to social development, but also the key to enterprise development. In a market full of competition and rapid development, without the innovation of keeping pace with The Times, enterprises will be rolled under the wheel of development in an instant. Technological innovation, product innovation, marketing innovation, channel innovation, system innovation, etc., all determine the future of life and death of enterprises. Chinese enterprises attach more and more importance to innovation, invest more and more resources in innovation, and see the benefits of innovation more and more realistically. Huawei is a good example. Huawei's 2018 financial report fully reflects its emphasis on innovation and the value of innovation. With a 10-year R&D investment of more than 485 billion yuan and a corporate culture of continuous innovation, Huawei became the first company in China to exceed 100 billion US dollars in revenue in 2018. Innovation is the innovation of the whole business chain of the enterprise, in which product innovation occupies a very important position, especially in the consumer goods industry. Consumer brands such as Apple, Huawei, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Shiseido, and Lancome are firmly guiding consumer trends through high-level product innovation. Whether enterprises can continuously develop new products that consumers like is one of the biggest challenges that consumer goods enterprises always face. Innovation and imitation are a pair of contradictions, there is innovation, there will be imitation. At present, many industries in China are still in the early stage of development, many enterprises have limited innovation strength and innovation ability, and progress has become an insurmountable stage in the early stage of development of many enterprises, and the wind of imitation prevails. In the fierce market competition, whether enterprises can protect their intellectual property rights while innovating products is as important as innovation itself. If the intellectual property protection of enterprises is not in place, they will face huge business risks and even cause great legal risks. In terms of consumer goods industry, product innovation is mainly reflected in three aspects: trademark, outer packaging and product formulation. The author will systematically discuss three issues of trademark protection, appearance protection and formula protection in consumer product innovation, so as to provide consumer product operators with a comprehensive understanding of intellectual property protection in product innovation, so as to better achieve commercial purposes. This paper mainly discusses the problem of product trademark protection.

Trademarks are particularly important in the protection of intellectual property rights in the innovation of consumer products. A trademark is a commercial sign used to distinguish the different sources of goods and services. It is composed of words, graphics, letters, numbers, three-dimensional signs, color combinations, sounds or the combination of the above elements. It is an important component and carrier of a brand and plays an important role in distinguishing the sources of goods or services. In distinguishing the source of goods or services, trademark is the most identifiable element of enterprise brand. Whether it is a new brand or a mature brand, whether it can determine a suitable trademark and protect it well in the development of the enterprise largely determines whether the development of the enterprise has a future. Hyundai Motor with Zhejiang automobile dealership in exchange for the purchase of China Modern trademark, Apple 80 million to buy the IPAD trademark, Didi travel was forced to change its name to Didi travel, Wong Lo Ji Jiaduobao brand century war and other cases, all remind business operators to pay attention to product brand management. Whether it is a new brand or a mature brand, it is no exception.

If the army does not move, the trademark first. This is especially true for upstart brands. Before launching a brand, the operator should not only consider the commercial factors of the brand, but also evaluate the legal factors of the trademark. No matter how good a trademark is in business, if it infringes on the rights of others or cannot be registered, then decisively give up. In business practice, many operators consider more commercial factors such as industry relevance, promotion convenience and personal preferences when determining the use of a trademark, while ignoring the legal feasibility assessment of the trademark. In the absence of legal feasibility assessment, the operator is very likely to face the same or similar trademark to the registered trademark of the competitor, which will lead to the dilemma of failing to register or infringing on the trademark rights of others, which will not only fail to achieve commercial purposes, but may even cause huge losses. When new brand operators determine the use of a trademark, the correct posture should be to consider both industry relevance, promotion convenience, operator preferences and other commercial factors, but also to consider the legal feasibility of trademark use. The bottom line of trademark legal feasibility is to ensure that the trademark does not infringe on the trademark rights of others' existing trademarks and avoid causing trademark disputes. At the same time, the higher requirement is to further judge the probability of trademark registration success, if there are substantial obstacles to registration success, the probability of registration success is very low, it should not be used. If the trademark cannot be successfully registered, it does not enjoy trademark rights and other trademark rights, which means that it cannot monopolize the use of the trademark rights and cannot enjoy the brand value. In addition to business factors, a good new brand must meet the two conditions of non-infringement and registration, otherwise it will encounter great challenges such as operation, financing and law in the later stage of business operation. The case of Didi Travel being forced to change its name to Didi Travel is a lesson. "Didi Taxi" is a taxi software brand of Beijing Xiaoorange Technology Co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as "Beijing Xiaoorange Company"). When Beijing Xiaoorange was founded in 2012, it used the trademark Didi Dache. From a business point of view, most people think that the sound of the car horn is "dee dee dee", and it is the most appropriate to name a travel software with "dee dee", which is very image. Beijing small orange company development into the fast lane, began to carry out the trademark layout, at this time found that "Didi" is Hangzhou Miaoying Microelectronics Co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as "Hangzhou Miaoying Company") registered trademark, the company's "Didi taxi" trademark can not be registered. Later, the small orange company repeatedly communicated with Hangzhou Miao Film Company, hoping to buy the trademark, but because of the price problem, the two sides did not reach an intention. According to Cheng Wei, CEO of Xiaoorange Company, the trademark sale price of Hangzhou Miaoying Micro company is 88 million yuan. In 2014, Hangzhou Miaoke Film Company sued Beijing Xiaoorange Company, asking Beijing Xiaoorange company to stop trademark infringement and pay 80 million yuan in damages. On the one hand, Beijing Small Orange Company does not want to buy the "Didi" trademark at a high price, on the other hand, Beijing Small Orange Company continues to use the Didi taxi trademark suspected of infringement, so in May 2014, Beijing Small Orange Company announced that its taxi software product "Didi Taxi" officially changed its name to "Didi Taxi".

Trademark protection is a dynamic process. As far as mature brands are concerned, trademark protection should be timely done in enterprise product innovation. On the one hand, when it comes to trademark protection, many operators usually mistake it for trademark registration, but it is not. Trademark protection is a series of systematic management work such as systematic application, registration, rights protection, licensing, renewal and renewal of trademarks. Trademark registration is only the beginning, not the whole of trademark protection. As far as mature brands are concerned, trademark management other than registration is particularly important. For example, in the use of trademarks to standardize the use of trademarks, not unauthorized change of trademarks, so as to avoid being revoked; The term of validity of a registered trademark shall be ten years, counted from the date of approval of the registration, and shall be renewed in time after the expiration of the trademark so as not to become invalid; After trademark registration, it is necessary to monitor the trademark registration of others, and timely raise objections to the same or similar trademark registration applications filed in the same or similar categories of goods, so as to avoid the third party registration of the same or similar trademarks, resulting in trademark confusion; When there are copycat products, fake goods and other infringement of trademark rights in the market, the first time to protect the brand image through legal means to protect the interests of operators. Many enterprises ignore or neglect the management work after registration, which has brought disastrous consequences to the business operation. The embarrassing status quo of classic cars, bag rats, Crocodiles, Valentino, PLAYBOY, Captain and other brands flying into the world is largely caused by brand mismanagement. On the other hand, mature brands in product innovation usually involve new market development, new channel development, sub-brand launch, new product line listing and a series of product innovation actions, each business strategy before the decision should pay attention to brand issues, one to ensure that the brand does not infringe, two to strive to register the brand in time, so as not to affect the realization of business purposes. Huawei announced its HarmonyOS after its operating system was "blocked" by Google. The trademark "Hongmeng" comes from the Classic of Mountains and Seas. At the same time, Huawei has also registered Kunlun, King Kong, Xuanwu, Qiankun, Zi long, Haotian, Taotie and so on as trademarks, it can be said that they have almost registered a "Book of Mountains and Seas" registered as trademarks. Huawei has also registered trademarks overseas based on foreign myths, including "ARK" and "ARK OS", which can be translated literally as "ark" and "Ark operating system" respectively. It can be seen that Huawei has "prepared for a rainy day", and at the same time of product development, the first time to lay out the problem of brand intellectual property protection; Its trademark protection consciousness is worth learning.

The president of the Coca-Cola Company once said: "Even if the torch of the Coca-Cola company is burned to the ground, the company can rebuild the factory and invest in new development in a few months only with the well-known trademark" Coca-Cola "." It can be seen that trademarks are the core assets of consumer goods operators. In the process of product innovation, consumer goods operators should keep pace with The Times and do a good job of trademark protection, systematic evaluation, layout, application, registration, rights protection, licensing and other work.