The dispute between the "Gubei Water Town" trademark -malicious registration and abuse of trademark rights constitute an unfair competition

The trademark law protects the legitimate rights and interests of the registered trademark right holder in accordance with the law. Recently, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court has concluded a case of maliciously registering the trademark of "Gubei Water Town" and abusing the trademark rights.

Gubei Water Town, located in Simatai Village, Gu Beikou Town, Miyun District, Beijing. It is back to the Great Wall of Simatai and sitting at the Linghu Reservoir. It is a rare Jiangnan characteristic town in the suburbs of Beijing. The total area of ​​Gubei Water Town is 9 square kilometers. It integrates tourism formats such as tourism tourism, leisure vacation, business exhibition, and creative culture. On November 18, 2020, Gubei Water Town was rated by the Beijing Culture and Tourism Bureau as the first Beijing celebrity humanistic landscape punch card.

Introduction to the case

Beijing Gubei Water Town Tourism Co., Ltd. (referred to as Gubei Water Town Company) was established in Miyun District, Beijing on July 16, 2010, and was established for the operation of Gubei Water Town Scenic Area. The scenic area received tourists every year from 2014 to 2016 Millions of people, with a total income of hundreds of millions of yuan.

Beijing Xiaomao Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as Xiaotao Company) was established in Miyun District, Beijing on February 12, 2014. At the time of its establishment, the business scope included trademark transfer and agency services, and then registered for this service.

Gubei Water Town Company believes that Xiaomao Company knows that the "Gubei Water Town" corporate name and unregistered trademark of the "Gu Beishui Town" company of Gubei Water Town still applied for registration on the 33rd alcohol products, the 25th clothing and other products No. 14073131, No. 14073132 "Gubei Water Town" trademark (referred to as the trademark involved in the case), and successively sends an infringement warning letter to Gu Beishui Town Company, mentioned a trademark infringement business complaint, requiring Gubei Water Town Company to stop in alcohol products in alcohol products The "Gubei Water Town" trademark was used on the packaging; the case involved in Xiaotao Company infringed the legitimate rights and interests of the Gubei Water Town Company, which led to the proper application for the registration of the "Gubei Water Town" trademark to be hindered, which disrupted the trademark and disrupted the trademark The registered order also violates the principle of honesty and facilities and constitutes unfair competition. The court requested that the small puppet company compensated its economic losses and reasonable expenses of 500,000 yuan, and published a statement to eliminate the impact.

No. 14073131 "Gubei Water Town" trademark

No. 14073132 "Gubei Water Town" trademark

The court of first instance heard that the small tanned company applied for the registration of the "Gubei Water Town" trademark involved in the case, and sent an infringement warning letter, and the act of mentioning business complaints infringing the legitimate rights and interests of the Gubei Water Town Company, violated the principle of honesty and faith, and constituted not to constitute Just competition. Xiao Tao Company was not convinced and appealed to the Beijing Intellectual Property Court.

During the second instance, Xiaoyao Company advocated that it was not malicious to apply for two "Gu Beishui Town" trademarks, and its legitimate rights protection did not constitute an unfair competition; and Xiao Tao did not actually use two "Gubei Water Town Town "Trademarks, the behavior involved will not cause substantial economic losses to the Gubei Water Town Company. Therefore, the court request the court to revoke the first trial judgment and rejected all the litigation requests for the first instance of the Gubei Water Town Company.

Judge interpretation

In this case, Xiaomao Company was registered for the trademark involved in the "Gubei Water Town" trademark of the "Gubei Water Town" trademark involved in the case involved in the case. Xiaomao also knew when sending an infringement warning letter and mentioning industrial and commercial complaints. There are major flaws in the basis of the registered trademark rights involved in the case, but they still exercise the special right to involve the trademark involved in grabbing unfair commercial interests and harming the legitimate rights and interests of others. The behavior of Xiaotao's involved in the case seriously violated the principle of honesty and facilitated, and constituted unfair competition in the abuse of trademark rights. In order to safeguard their legitimate rights and interests and respond to the cost of the small tanned company's abuse of trademark rights, it belongs to the direct economic loss caused by the aforementioned improper competition.

In summary, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court based on Article 2 and 20 of the "Anti -Unfair Competition Law of the People's Republic of China in 1993", and "Article 177, Paragraph 1, paragraph 1 of the Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China in 1993 The provisions, the judgment rejected the appeal and maintained the original judgment, or ordered the small cricket company to compensate the economic loss of 280,000 yuan and a reasonable expenditure of 35,000 yuan in the ancient Beibei Town Company, and published in the "China Intellectual Property Daily" on the case of unfairness involved in the case. Disclaimer, eliminate the impact.

Judge Tips

The referee in this case reflects the concept of "malicious registration and abuse of trademark rights constitutes unfair competition". It is determined that the basis of the registered trademark rights obtained by the registered trademark itself has major rights defects, and after obtaining the registered trademark, it is abused The dedicated right of registered trademarks cannot be changed, nor can it change the nature of its behavior nature. In this case, the registered trademark held by the trademark registered person is no longer the trademark of the trademark law, but the circle symbols that have been reduced to the trademark protection of the trademark law; The various expression forms of trademark rights, departure the legislative goals and system purposes of the trademark law, seriously violate the principles of honesty trust, disrupt trademark registration and protect order, and harm the social economy and competition order.

Supply: Beijing Intellectual Property Court

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