Drink Red Bull when you are thirsty, drink Red Bull when you are sleepy or tired.” Once upon a time, this advertising slogan was “bombed” in major media across the country and became almost a household name. As the best-selling function in the Chinese market One of the beverages, Red Bull almost monopolized the market before 2013. However, with the protracted litigation battle between the two companies in China and Thailand over the Red Bull trademark, Red Bull's market share declined year by year until December 2020, when the Supreme People's Court confirmed that " "Red Bull Series Trademark" belongs to Thailand Tencel Pharmaceutical and Health Care Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Tencel Pharmaceutical). Red Bull Vitamin Beverage Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as China Red Bull) does not enjoy the legitimate rights and interests of the trademark owner.
Just like back then The trademark war between Wanglaoji and Jiaduobao has hurt the vitality of the company and lost market share. Today’s functional drink market is no longer dominated by Red Bull. With the entry of Lehu, Zhongwo, and Dongpeng Special Drinks, the functional drink market has already changed. What a strong division.
From "honeymoon" to litigation
Public information shows that Xu Shubiao, who died in 2012, founded Tencel Pharmaceuticals, which sells antibiotics, in 1956. Focusing on the research and development of energy supplements, he invented a drink made of caffeine, sugar, amino acids, and taurine in 1975, namely Thai Red Bull.
In 1984, Yan Bin was in Thailand. Founded Reignwood Group. In December 1995, Reignwood Group established China Red Bull in China as a joint venture with Thai Red Bull and Thai Tencel Group, and owned the operating rights of the "Red Bull REDBULL" trademark in China.
1998. In 2018, the two parties and another shareholder signed a new joint venture contract again, with Tencel Pharmaceuticals providing technical support for China Red Bull in terms of production technology and product formula, while Reignwood Group will lead product production and operation.
After Xu Shubiao passed away in 2012, the cooperation between Tencel Pharmaceutical and Reignwood Group broke down. In the following years, Tencel Pharmaceutical continued to accuse Reignwood Group of secretly transferring business and profits.
October 2016. In March, Tencel Pharmaceutical announced that the Red Bull trademark license contract had expired and would not be renewed. However, Reignwood Group continued to lead the production and sales of Red Bull products. In response, Tencel Pharmaceutical chose to go to court to obtain the right to use the "Red Bull series trademark". It has become a focus of debate between the two parties.
Whether China Red Bull can continue to legally use the "Red Bull series of trademarks" means whether China Red Bull can continue to sell Red Bull beverage products in the Chinese market. In order to obtain the right to use the trademark, China Red Bull has made a number of proposals. It is argued that, as the actual user of the trademark involved, he has made great contributions to the improvement of trademark goodwill and should enjoy trademark rights.
After years of litigation between the two parties, on November 25, 2019, the Beijing Higher People’s Court decided. The first-instance judgment was made, rejecting China Red Bull's request for the court to confirm its legal rights as owners of the 17 "Red Bull series trademarks". China Red Bull subsequently appealed to the Supreme People's Court, requesting that the first-instance judgment be revoked.
The final trial confirmed the rights and the dust settled
On October 10, 2020, the dispute over the trademark ownership of China Red Bull and Tencel Pharmaceuticals was heard in the Fourth Court of the Supreme People’s Court. The number of viewers of the live broadcast of the trial reached 300,000.
China Red Bull appealed, claiming that the first-instance court did not review the established facts and that many basic facts were unclear. Therefore, it requested that the first-instance judgment be revoked and the case be sent back for retrial. China Red Bull has also made it clear that its claim is to confirm its legitimate rights and interests as the owner of the relevant trademark, not trademark ownership.
The respondent Tencel Pharmaceutical argued that the relevant judgment of the first instance court complied with legal procedures and that Tencel Pharmaceutical holds clear, independent and complete ownership of the Red Bull series of trademarks. The meaning of the relevant clauses in the "1995 Joint Venture Contract" signed by Tencel Pharmaceuticals and other shareholders on November 10, 1995 is that Thai Tencel, as the trademark owner, provides a trademark use license to Red Bull Beverage Company, and it is in no way a transfer of the Red Bull trademark. ownership.
It is understood that the above-mentioned "1995 joint venture contract" refers to the agreement between Tencel Pharmaceuticals and China Shenzhen Zhonghao (Group) Co., Ltd., China National Food Industry Corporation and Red Bull Vitamin Beverage on November 10, 1995. (Thailand) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Red Bull Thailand Company) signed the "Red Bull Vitamin Beverage Co., Ltd. Contract", agreeing that *** will jointly invest in the establishment of China Red Bull, and it was agreed that Tencel Pharmaceutical Company "provides the product formula and process technology of Red Bull Beverage Company" , trademarks and subsequent improvement technologies” and “The trademarks of Red Bull Beverage Company’s products are part of the assets of Red Bull Beverage Company”
According to the judgment of the Beijing Higher People’s Court in November 2019, Red Bull Vitamin Beverage Co., Ltd. (China Red Bull), as the plaintiff, requested the court to confirm its claim against Nos. 878072, 878073, 1289559, 1264582, 5608276, 1219609, 5035427, 969643, 11227127, 11460102, 5035426, 3478098, 24144331, 112 Registered trademarks 27115, 5033257, 592693, 503325517 The Red Bull series of trademarks enjoy the legitimate rights and interests of the owner, and the owner of Thai Red Bull, Tencel Medical Healthcare Co., Ltd., is required to pay a total of 3.753 billion yuan in advertising expenses. China Red Bull requests confirmation that the above-mentioned Red Bull series trademarks are exclusively owned by Red Bull Vitamins. If this cannot be confirmed, Red Bull Vitamins and Tencel Pharmaceuticals jointly own it. On November 25, 2019, the Beijing Higher People's Court issued a first-instance judgment on the case and rejected all claims of China Red Bull.
After the final hearing, the case was selected as one of the top ten intellectual property cases announced by the Supreme People's Court on World Intellectual Property Day in 2021 and the top ten cases of judicial protection of intellectual property rights in Beijing courts in 2020.
On May 12, 2021, the People's Court of Chaoyang District, Beijing served a civil ruling to both parties. From that day on, Hualian Supermarket stopped selling "Red Bull series trademarks" produced by China Red Bull. "Red Bull Vitamin Energy Drink" product, the ruling will begin immediately.
Don’t be confused between the three Red Bulls
During the tug-of-war between the two sides, another interested party in the Red Bull beverage - Austrian Red Bull - gradually emerged.
Public information shows that in 1984, Austrian Mateschitz and Xu Shubiao founded Austrian Red Bull Company, each holding 49% of the company's shares, and the remaining 2% belongs to Xu Shubiao's eldest son Xu Shuen (currently chairman of Thailand's Red Bull Beverage Group). The wholly-owned subsidiary of Austrian Red Bull has entered China as early as 2014. It is not difficult to see that the composition of Red Bull's trademark rights is very complicated. As early as the 1980s, "two identical Monkey Kings" appeared, but the parties did not pay enough attention. There have been hidden dangers of trademark disputes for so many years.
On December 24, 2019, Austrian Red Bull held a press conference in Beijing to sign the contract with Gu Ailing. This was the first high-profile promotion event held by Austrian Red Bull since it entered the Chinese market in 2014. Industry insiders believe that due to trademark disputes in the Chinese market between Red Bull Vitamins controlled by Reignwood Group and Tencel Pharmaceuticals, the owner of the Red Bull brand, Austrian Red Bull kept a low profile in the early days of entering the Chinese market.
In fact, before entering the Chinese market in 2014, Austrian Red Bull had established a working group in China and applied for the "Blue Hat" logo for health products. Currently, Austrian Red Bull is sold offline in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Jinan and other cities. The price is around 15 yuan. They are all imported products and are mainly expanded through the dealer model. Online, Austrian Red Bull has opened self-operated flagship stores on Tmall and JD.com.
It is understood that Austrian Red Bull was launched on the market in 1987. In 2018, Austrian Red Bull sold 7 billion cans globally, with the market covering all continents in Asia, Europe, Africa and the United States. Mateschitz has already become Austria's richest man thanks to Red Bull.
Behind the protracted litigation over the Red Bull trademark lies the huge "cake" of China's functional drink market.
China Red Bull has always been the "cash cow" of Reignwood Group. At the end of December 2020, Reignwood Group announced that the sales revenue of its five brands of Red Bull Vitamin Functional Drink, War Horse Energy Vitamin Drink, Vose Natural Mineral Water, Vita Coco Natural Coconut Water, and Guobeishang Children's Juice reached 24.201 billion yuan. . Among them, the sales revenue of Red Bull beverage exceeded 22.8 billion yuan. Some industry insiders believe that once the Red Bull series trademarks are not allowed to be used, China Red Bull and Reignwood Group will suffer huge losses.
According to reports, Red Bull drinks account for nearly 60% of the market share in China’s functional drink market. If it is banned, the domestic functional drink market structure may usher in huge changes.
Reignwood Group is already prepared for this. In the past few years, Reignwood Group has been making new market attempts in an attempt to get rid of its over-reliance on single products. For example, the company vigorously promotes another functional drink-"War Horse" in an attempt to expand new profit points. However, judging from the current market performance, the new product is far from being able to replace Red Bull products in the short term.
As a dual opponent in court and in the market, Tencel Pharmaceuticals is also pressing hard on Reignwood Group in terms of market layout. In June 2019, Tencel Pharmaceuticals teamed up with new partners in the Chinese market to launch the Red Bull Anegy beverage, and in December 2019 announced the introduction of original imported Red Bull into the Chinese market.
In early July 2021, Xu Xinxiong, CEO of Thailand's Tencel Group, wrote to Chen Changzhi, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the 11th and 12th National People's Congress, former Chairman of the Central Committee of Democratic National Construction Association, and Chairman of "Siyuan Project" . Xu Xinxiong stated in the letter that with the rapid development of China's economy and the growing needs of consumers, Thailand's Tencel Group is full of confidence in China's future and will continue to adhere to the purpose of "based on China and give back to China". First, it will continue to expand its presence in China. Invest in China, actively respond to relevant calls from the Chinese government, steadily advance the previously announced investment plan in China for the next three years, deepen strategic relationships with partners in China, enhance marketing and R&D capabilities, expand new production bases, and provide better services to meet Chinese consumers. The second is to continue to support public welfare and charity, focusing on the rural revitalization strategy proposed by China, and in the next three years, we will carry out educational assistance, rural development, disaster relief, ecological and environmental protection and other public welfare projects in economically underdeveloped areas with the "Siyuan Project."
The dispute over the ownership of the Red Bull trademark has come to an end, and the snipe and the clam are competing for the profit. The unclear definition of trademarks and other intangible assets has brought great uncertainty and risks to the company's operations. The gold diggers want to seize the Red Bull dispute and develop the functional drink market. But whether the "two cows" reconcile or not, the wealth map of functional drinks may be rewritten.