New | Under pressure over trademark, Alibaba says it won’t monopolise ‘Double Eleven’ brand
Alibaba has sparked a new round of controversy over its registration of the trademark “Double Eleven” – a highly successful one-day promotion event it launched on November 11, 2009.
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has sparked a new round of controversy over its registration of the trademark “Double Eleven” – an online shopping promotion campaign it launched five years ago to boost sales during a traditionally slow season, which has since become the world's biggest online shopping event.
Sales on November 11, also known to Chinese netizens as "Singles' Day", have sky-rocketed since the Chinese e-commerce retailer launched the event, with turnover reaching a record 35 billion yuan last year – making it the world’s most lucrative shopping day.
But the term “Double Eleven” does not specially refer to Alibaba’s online shopping event, with many other retail sites in China also opting to promote the November sales day this way each year – until last Thursday, that is.
Rival Chinese e-commerce retailer Jingdong revealed on October 30 that Alibaba had successfully registered the trademark “Double Eleven”, and had asked media outlets not to carry ads or commercials using the term for this year’s November 11 promotion. In the statement, Alibaba threatened to sue media outlets if they failed to comply with their request.
Jingdong argued that the “Double Eleven” term should be open to the whole retail industry and contested that Alibaba was “imposing a monopoly in the name of the law”.
Suning, another Alibaba competitor, issued an announcement on the same day that confirmed Alibaba’s request for a media ban on the term.
