A Notable Trademark Dispute Case Of "CUEEI" War "GUCCI"

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Origin

"CUEEI (Gu Berg)" is a registered trademark of ancient riding company. It is named after the pronunciation of "ancient riding" in Minnan dialect. It is the company's own brand. Since 2002, it has been used in the production of its products. In 2003, it registered the application with the Trademark Office. In April 2006, the Commerce Bureau issued a trademark registration certificate after its approval, and its effective use period was 2016.

During the period, in order to enhance brand awareness, the company hired Chyi Chin as the brand spokesperson and put advertisements in CCTV and other media. The trademark has been widely used in the Chinese market for a long time, and there are many stores in large and medium-sized cities.

The rapid increase in popularity led to the illegal use of CUEEI trademarks by several illegal traders. In May 2007, the Shishi industrial and commercial bureau and the Wuhan qiaqikou branch of the Wuhan Administration for Industry and Commerce successfully destroyed the CUEEI counterfeiting Gang headed by Wenzhou people, indicating that CUEEI has a high market value.

Who knew that in February of 2009, the ancient Qiao Qiao Xi company submitted the application for cancellation of registration to the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce on the ground of ancient riding maliciously imitating its trademark.

In September last year, the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board ruled that the registration of "CUEEI" trademarks on clothing, shoes, socks, hats, scarves and neckties should be revoked, and the registration of baby clothing, costumes, swimsuits and gloves (clothing) should be maintained.

For this result, ancient riding was quite surprised, and he angrily filed an administrative lawsuit against the first intermediate people's Court of Beijing. The Trademark Review and Adjudication Board was sent to the court to request the court to rescind the ruling.

Debate

Recently, the court heard the case.

In the debate of the court, Hongzhi, chairman of Gu Qi company, said that the application of "CUEEI" trademark was legally valid, and it was different from "GUCCI" in terms of pronunciation, font or meaning. The defendant ruled that the two were similar and had no reason.

He emphasized that there is another criterion for judging whether the two trademarks are similar or not, that is, whether it is easy to mislead the relevant public to the source of goods or services. Because of the obvious differences between the two trademarks, the relevant public can distinguish them without giving rise to mistaken recognition.

In fact, he used the "CUEEI" trademark for eight or nine years, and never had the consumer "CUEEI" mistaken for "GUCCI" situation.

Although both have clothing, they have different market positioning and different consumer groups. There is no question of misidentification.

viewpoint

"In October 16, 2002, the Supreme People's Court promulgated and implemented the interpretation of several issues applicable to the trial of trademark civil disputes cases, and summarized and concluded how to judge whether the trademarks are similar in the judicial practice in the form of judicial interpretation, and established a series of standards.

Jie Xiaofei lawyer said.

The complete definition of trademark approximation is that the trademark infringed is more similar to the plaintiff's registered trademark than that of the plaintiff's registered trademark. The font, pronunciation, meaning, or composition and color of the text, or the overall structure of its components are similar, or its three-dimensional shape and color combination are similar. It is easy for the relevant public to misunderstand the source of the goods or that the source has a specific relationship with the registered trademark of the plaintiff.

According to this definition, "CUEEI" and "GUCCI" are not similar.

In April 21, 2009, the Supreme People's Court issued the notice on "some opinions on the overall situation of intellectual property trial services under the current economic situation", among which there is such a content: "preventing the system of false trademark disputes of the parties from illegitimately opportunistic and clever taking advantage of them, and avoiding major difficulties caused by the unauthorized withdrawal of registered trademarks to the normal operation of enterprises."

The trademark Commission's ruling violates this spirit.

He said that trademark approximation is first of all a legal concept (an approximation in Trademark Law), not just a factual concept, that is, from the premise of prohibiting the purpose of trademark infringement to prohibit market confusion, it is only a confusion approximation (confusion approximation) that can form an approximation of trademark infringement judgment, and not only a factual approximation of each element of trademark.

Only by accurately grasping the legal concepts and criteria of trademark similarity can we define the scope of rights accurately and effectively protect the rights.