Topics
Understanding the Emerging Market
Why IP is important in emerging markets?
What is a patent?
- Allows registration with Custom Authorities
- Fast track regulatory process
- Most emerging markets have a first-to-file system for Trademarks
- Brazil, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Hungary, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, Poland and Russia
- Designs – protect the exterior shape and design or product
- Low cost, quick and in some countries only effective way to protect appearance
Understanding the barriers?
- Local Insight – understand the local needs, values, religion, culture and economics
- Language – it is not just about translation
- Slang
- Transliteration
- Context
- Legal/Political Landscape
- What is patentable subject matter?
Not getting it right
• Pepsi – when it went into China it used the slogan used in the US – “Come Alive”, but the slogan translated as “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead!”
• KFC – when they opened in China “finger lickin’ good” translated to “eat your fingers off”
• Coca Cola – phonetic translation it launched with in China in 1920 meant “bite the wax tadpole”
• Procter & Gamble – typical packaging has an image of a stork delivering a baby – in Japan the story goes that giant floating peaches bring babies to their parents
• Pepsodent tried to sell its toothpaste in South East Asia by advertising it whitens your teeth – they found out that the locals chew bezel nuts to blacken their teeth as this is viewed as attractive
• The “internationally recognized” symbol for fragile – but African port staff saw it on boxes and assumed it meant the boxes contained broken glass and threw them into the sea
• Thailand – an ad for glasses showed cute animals wearing a variety of glasses. The ad was not well received as animals are considered a low life form and no Thai would wear anything worn by animals
• American medical containers were distributed in Great Britain and caused a stir with the instructions “Take off top and push in bottom”
Hot Topics
