Gaowo represented the litigation of invalidation filed by the appellant Shandong Qiubajie against the appellee CNIPA. And the third party is Jiangsu Yilijia.
Basic information:
The appellee, CNIPA, thought that proposed mark “华凤伊家”with No.18782288A constituted a similar trademark to the cited mark “伊例家” with No.3949544 (cited mark 1) and the cited mark “伊例家”with No.12718493 (cited mark 2) in respect of similar products:soy sauce, condiments and spices, and decided that the registration of the proposed mark on the above mentioned products shall be invalidated.
The appellant claimed: the proposed mark is different from the cited marks in font, content, meaning and other aspects, and they are not similar trademarks. So the consumers can distinguish them easily. To sum up, the appellant kindly requested the Court to revoke the sued decision and make a new decision.
The appellee claimed : the sued decision was made based on clear facts, correct laws and lawful procedures, so the Court was required to refuse the claims of the appellant according to law.
The third party claimed : it agreed to the sued decision and requested the Court refuse the claims of the appellant according to law.
The opinion of the Court:
According to the opinions of all parties, the focus of this case is whether the proposed mark is similar to or identical with the cited marks on the products :Soy sauce;Condiments and Spices.
The provisions of the Article 30 of Trademark Law: Where a trademark the registration of which has been applied for is not in conformity with the relevant provisions of this law, or it is identical with or similar to the trademark of another person that has, in respect of the same or similar goods, been registered or, after examination, preliminarily approved, the trademark Office shall refuse the application and shall not publish the said trademark.
Considering that all parties agreed that the products :Soy sauce;Condiments and Spices designated by the proposed mark are similar to the products designated by the cited marks, our Court will only comment on whether the proposed mark is similar to the cited marks.
The trademark similarity means that the trademarks are similar in font, pronunciation, meaning or device, color or the overall structure, or the three-dimensional shape, color combination so that the consumers will be misled easily about the origin of goods or will correlate the goods origin with the prior registered trademarks of others.
In this case, the proposed mark “华凤伊家” is similar to cited mark 1 and cited mark 2 “伊例家” in font, composed Chinese characters and pronunciation. And the proposed mark has no new meanings. So it will cause confusion among the public about goods origin if the marks from both sides coexist in the market. So the three marks constitute similar trademarks. And the proposed mark are similar to the cited marks in respect of similar products. The registration of the proposed mark violated the provisions of Article 30 of Trademark Law.
In conclusion, the sued decision was made on clear facts, correct laws and legal procedures. And the claims of the appellant lack facts and law basis, so our Court shall not support it. According to the provisions of Article 69 of Administrative Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China, we decide:
The claims of the appellant Shandong Qiubajie shall be refused.
