Tag Archives: the use of trademark

Why Does China Court Order New Balance a High Amount Compensation of RMB 98 Million for Trademark Infringement?

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(By Luo Yanjie) Recently, Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court ordered New Balance Trading (China) Co., Ltd, an affiliate of US-based Sports footwear manufacturer New Balance, to compensate a Chinese shoes owner, Zhou Yuelun, with a rarely high amount of RMB 98 million for infringing his Chinese “新百伦” trademark, a Chinese transliteration from English word New Balance, in the first instance. Such high amount of compensation is unusual in China intellectual property infringement. It is for this reason that this case attracted extensive attention. Upon the public records, from the legal view, we will briefly introduce and analyze this case in today’s post.

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China Supreme Court Approved Passive Use as the Use of Trademark

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(By Luo Yanjie) Trademark is to distinguish the goods and services from different trademark owners. However, if the public voluntarily called it another name and made use of it, then does such use still constituted the use of trademark as regulated in the Trademark Law. If you want to know more, please read the next posts.

Introduction to the Case:

Re-appellant (third party at first instance and appellant at second instance): Gui Pufang

Re-respondent (plaintiff at first instance and respondent at second instance): Guangdong Tea Imp. & Exp. Co. Ltd (the “GDT”)

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Could JD.com Make the Alibaba’s Registered “双十一” Trademark Invalid?

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京东

(By You Yunting) According to the news, Alibaba Group, an Chinese e-commerce that provides consumer-to-consumer business-to-consumer and business-to-business sales services via web portals, has already obtained the registration of the trademark “双十一” (meaning “double 11”, actually the date of November 11th) (the “disputed trademark”) and authorized its affiliated Tmall.com to the  exclusive use of the disputed trademark. Moreover, Alibaba delivered letters to various news media arguing that the JD.com’s use of “双十一” infringed the rights of its trademark. However, JD.com, one of the largest B2C online retailers in China by transaction volume, replied that the date of “November 11th” has already became a shopping day for all retailers and Alibaba’s registration on the “双十一” is accused of having the monopoly. Actually, Sunning Appliance, Gome and Amazon have suffered such impacts as well as JD.com.

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Competitor Using Recycled Budweiser’s Bottles Constituted Trademark Infringement

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budweiser

(By You Yunting) Our website has previously  introduced the case where ABlnbev (China) Sales Co., Ltd filed a lawsuit against its competitor, who was unauthorized to use the bottles with the trademarks “Budweiser” and “ABlnbev”. Recently, the Shanghai Higher People’s Court made a final judgment in favor of ABlnbev (China) Sales Co., Ltd.

Introduction to the Case:

Appellant: (Defendant at the first instance): Xiyingmen Beer Company (the “Company Z”)

Respondent: (Plaintiff at the first instance): ABlnbev (China) Sales Co., Ltd

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