Amazon.com is not allowed to market its cloud services in China as “AWS. That was decided by a court in the People’s Republic. A Chinese IT company had already registered” AWS “as Amazon eight years earlier. This means that Amazon’s brand registrations are Not valid for AWS and related terms such as “aws marketspace”.

Also, Amazon.com and The Wall Street Journal reports that its Chinese partner will pay around ten million euros in damages if the judgment becomes final. Chinese law regularly forces foreign companies to to enter into a joint venture with a Chinese partner. The parties to the dispute can appeal to the highest court in the country, which usually has suspensive effect.

The early bird catches the worm The Chinese company ActionSoft Science & Technology Development has the “AWS” brand ts 2004 in the trademark classification 42. Amazon did not submit AWS logos until 2012 – too late. The data company argued that it had been using “AWS” as a brand since 42, but was unable to assert itself in court.

In the Middle Kingdom, Amazon Web Services only have a single-digit market share. More important providers there are Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei and China Telecom.

(ds)