About 15 percent of China's well-known trademarks have been preregistered by overseas firms, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Each year, more than 100 such cases involving cosmetics, beverages, appliances, garments and other goods were handled by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, the Beijing Daily reported on Thursday.

Experts from the Ministry of Commerce warned that if Chinese enterprises do not adopt positive measures to handle this problem, the issue could affect their overseas investment in the future.

Fen He from the ministry said that pre-registering Chinese trademarks is not good for Chinese enterprises in expanding their business overseas, as that this would affect their sales volume.

Surveys reveal that most of the pre-registration cases occurred in countries in the Asian-Pacific region.

Over the past years, more than 80 Chinese trademarks were registered in Indonesia, and nearly 100 trademarks were registered in Japan, another 200 were registered in Australia.

Most of the trademarks registered by overseas firms are famous ones in China, including Wuliangye, a liquor produced by Guizhou Province in southwest China, Guan Sheng Yuan, a food Co. Ltd in Jiangsu Province, and Fei Ge (Flying Pigeon), a trademark for bicycle produced by Tianjin.

According to industry insiders, one of the goals of the pre-registration of Chinese trademarks is to hinder the entrance of the Chinese products into the overseas market, and the other is for profiteering.

Experts called on Chinese enterprises to get to know about the international trade game rules and register their trademarks as soon as possible in order to better protect their rights.

China has joined the Madrid Protocol on the international registration of trademark. However, Chinese enterprises lack a concept of trademark registration.

In 2004, Chinese trademarks were registered overseas in the system in the mere hundreds, compared with more than 10,000 trademark registrations by foreign firms in China.

(Xinhua News Agency July 30, 2005)