NewBalance is an American New Balance sports company.
New Barron is a shoe industry in Lidu, Liwan District, Guangzhou.
New Balance is held by a natural person named Zhou Lelun.
In July 2000, the trademark of "New Barron" was transferred to Duolido Shoes.
In April 2003, NEWBALANCE Company of the United States was approved to register the trademark "New Balance" on the 25th kind of shoes.
In April 2004, the original owner of the trademark "Bailun" was transferred to Zhou Lelun after approval.
In June 2004, Zhou Lelun applied for the registration of the trademark "New Balance".
From June 5438 to February 2006, NewBalance authorized sales company-New Balance Trading (China) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "New Balance Company") was established.
In June 2007, New Balance authorized New Balance Company to use the above trademark in China.
June 5438+October 2008/KLOC-0, Zhou Lelun's trademark "New Balance" was registered. The company he authorized also produces men's shoes with the trademark of "New Balance" and sells them in shopping malls.
Tracing back to the source:
Usually, after a brand enters China, our consumers will give him a Chinese homophonic translation, such as Nike, Nike, Adidas, Adidas and so on. After all, the popularity of English in his early years was not high, so it was easier to give him a Chinese name.
This is the problem. The Chinese homonym of "New Balance" just corresponds to "New Balance" and "New Balance".
1In August, 1998, Dongdong Yiduoli Shoes Factory in Chaoan County applied to the Trademark Office to register the trademark of "New Barron" on shoes, which was approved in June, 1999.
In July, 2000, it was transferred to Duolido Footwear (hereinafter referred to as Duolido Footwear) in Liwan District, Guangzhou. Subsequently, Dolly Road shoes created many "New Balance" trademarks on different goods and services.
After learning about "New Balance", New Balance will affect the trademarks such as "NBL", "New Balance", "New Balance" and "New Balance" on the 25th category of clothing and footwear.
Objection and application for invalidation are also supported by the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board, such as trademark number. 389 1464 was applied by Lidoli in 2004. The Trademark Review and Adjudication Board ruled against registration in the objection review.
As a result, the two started a long-lasting trademark objection case, from the first trial to the second trial. At that time, the Beijing Higher People's Court made the following judgment:
In this case, the objected Chinese character "New Barron" and its corresponding Chinese Pinyin are the prominent identification parts of the trademark. Although the cited trademark (the trademark of New Balance Company) is an English trademark, the Chinese pronunciation of the English word "NEW BALANCE" is basically the same as that of "new balance". And the evidence submitted by New Balance Company can prove that the cited trademark has a certain popularity.
Therefore, when they are used on the same or similar goods at the same time, the relevant public may be confused about their sources or mistaken for a series of trademarks provided by the same commodity provider. Therefore, the objected trademark and the cited trademark constitute approximate trademarks used on similar goods.
Extended data:
Brand infringement
NEWBALANCE's "latecomers" were claimed by Guangzhou business owners.
The NEWBALANCE brand involved was founded in the United States on 1906 and is a well-known sports shoes brand abroad.
According to the defense opinions of the defendant New Balance Trading (China) Co., Ltd. (whose domicile is Changning Road, Changning District, Shanghai) and the official website publicity of the brand involved, the brand is ranked second in the United States and has gradually become an international sports brand.
In 2006, Shanghai New Balance Company was established, mainly responsible for
Domestic sales of new balance sports shoes series products, and soon occupied a large number of running shoes market share. In this process, in order to adapt to the China market culture, the company chose to use the Chinese name of "New Balance" for publicity and marketing, and used the logo of "New Balance" in the advertisements of its promotional products.
However, while the popularity of "New Balance" is getting higher and higher, Mr. Zhou Moulun of Guangzhou sued New Balance Trading (China) Co., Ltd. and a distributor in Guangzhou for infringement. In Zhou Moulun's mouth, "New Balance" is an "impostor" in the legal sense.
It turned out that Zhou Moulun claimed that the trademark "New Balance" had already been registered in China, which can be traced back to 1996. At that time, Zhou Moulun's family first registered the trademark "Tianping".
Specifically, the registered trademark No.865609 "Bailun" was approved for use in the 25th category of "clothing, shoes, hats and socks" and was registered on1June 5438+August 2 1 96. The trademark was approved for transfer to Zhou Molun in April 2004.
Later, Zhou registered a series of "joint trademarks", that is, the registered trademark No.4100879 "New Balance" was also approved for use in the 25th category of goods, and Zhou Moulun was approved to register the trademark on June 5438+ 10.
At the same time, Zhou Moulun also set up an enterprise to produce men's shoes products with "Balance" and "New Balance" as trademarks, and set up sales counters in large shopping malls.
According to the original report, the defendant company has opened the official flagship store of New Balance and the flagship store of New Balance children's shoes on the websites of Tmall and JD.COM Mall.
Because the defendant used "New Balance" as the trademark logo, and also used "New Balance" as the product logo in the online store, and marked "Thank you for purchasing New Balance products" in the shopping receipt issued by the specialty store, a large number of consumers and operators mistakenly thought that the "New Balance" trademark was the Chinese trademark of the defendant's new balance company products.
On this basis, the plaintiff believes that the defendant's behavior has separated the specific relationship between the plaintiff as the trademark owner and the registered trademark of "New Balance", and inhibited the plaintiff from establishing and expanding the space of trademark value of "Balance" and "New Balance", which constitutes trademark infringement.
According to the plaintiff's statistics, from July of 201/kloc-0 to the time of prosecution, the total amount of alleged infringing products sold by New Balance Company has exceeded 654.38 billion yuan, which is huge. The plaintiff sued the defendant, New Balance Company, demanding that it immediately stop the infringement and eliminate the influence, and compensate the loss of 98 million yuan and pay the reasonable expenses for rights protection.
In this regard, the defendant New Balance Company replied that "New Balance" was used as the Chinese name of New Balance's goods, but "New Balance" was not prominently used as the enterprise name on the goods, but was used in good faith.
It also claims that the plaintiff used the "New Balance" to sell goods much earlier than the plaintiff used the "New Balance" trademark to sell goods, and its use did not confuse consumers or the relevant public and did not constitute infringement.
Knowing that it was improper, the court of first instance ruled that the case was "malicious use"
Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court held that the plaintiff's "Bailun" trademark had already been registered at 1996, and this information could be easily found through public channels. Moreover, the defendant's affiliated company (New Balance Company) requested the Trademark Office to reject the plaintiff's application for trademark registration in June 5438+February 2007, which was not adopted.
This shows that the defendant New Balance Company is aware of the registration of the trademarks "Balance" and "New Balance", but still chooses to use "New Balance" to mark and publicize its products.
Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court held that knowing that the plaintiff had won the "New Balance"
After the trademark was registered, the defendant continued to widely use the "New Balance" logo in sales and publicity, so it cannot be considered that the defendant used the word "New Balance" in good faith. The defendant believes that the view that "New Balance" enjoys prior rights cannot be established.
The defendant also said that "New Balance" is the new balance translation of its product name, but the Chinese translation of New Balance is "New Balance", and the defendant New Balance Company also called its affiliated company New Balance Sports Shoes Co., Ltd..
As a "New BALANCE Sports Shoes Company", the defendant claimed that its products were previously named as "New Balance", so the opinion that it did not infringe the registered trademark rights of the plaintiffs "Balance" and "New Balance" could not be established on the grounds that the "New Balance" used by the defendant was a translation of its product name.
Judging from the defendant's financial evidence preserved by the court, the operating profit of the defendant New Balance Company during the infringement period was as high as about 6.5438+958 million yuan, and judging from the way and scope of its use of the "New Balance" logo, the defendant made huge profits through its infringement, and it should bear the corresponding tort liability.
Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court ruled in the first instance that the defendant New Balance Trading (China) Co., Ltd. immediately stopped using New Balance to mark and publicize its products; Compensation for the plaintiff is RMB 98 million.
Release statements on the homepage of "New Balance (China) official website" and the homepage of "New Balance Flagship Store" and "New Balance Children's Shoes Flagship Store" opened in Tmall Mall to eliminate the influence.
After the judgment of the first instance in this case, New Balance Company has not yet announced whether to appeal.
2065438+On June 23rd, 2006, Guangdong Higher People's Court made a judgment on the trademark dispute case of "New Balance". New Balance, a well-known American shoe company, lost the case and was ordered to compensate Zhou Lelun, a citizen of China, for economic losses of 5 million yuan. Statements were published on the front pages of New Balance (China) official website, New Balance Flagship Store and New Balance Children's Footwear Flagship Store.
reference data
Baidu Encyclopedia-New Balance