It was reported on August 13, 2018 that the Beijing Intellectual Property Court recently accepted the lawsuit filed by the plaintiff Lianfan Company against Shanghai Gaoge Company, Shanghai Film Company, Shanghai Tencent Pictures Company, Dadi Times Company, and Beijing Herui A case involving trademark infringement and unfair competition disputes between six defendants including a film company and Beijing Jinshawan Investment Management Company.
Lianfan Company claimed that in 2008, it entrusted a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gaoge Company to produce the TV series "Love Apartment". In 2009, Lianfan Company cooperated with other investors and through Gaoge Company The company's wholly-owned subsidiary produces the TV series "Love Apartment 2".
Lianfan Company believes that the company and Gaoge Company’s wholly-owned subsidiary clearly agreed in the agreement that all rights related to the TV series "Love Apartment" and "Love Apartment 2" belong to Lianfan Company, including But it is not limited to the copyright, trademark rights, related derivative product rights and rights of the TV series, as well as the rights to publish advertising, publicity and other forms of utilizing the TV series. Shangfan International Innovation Technology Co., Ltd., an affiliated company of Hou Lianfan Company, has applied for registration of "Love Apartment" and the main characters "Zeng Xiaoxian", "Hu Yifei", There are many trademarks such as "Tang Youyou" and "Lu Ziqiao". With authorization, Lianfan Company has the right to exclusively use the above-mentioned trademarks in film and television products and promotion and distribution, and has the right to independently file lawsuits to safeguard the above-mentioned rights.
From the end of May to the beginning of June 2018, Lianfan Company learned that the six defendants including Gaoge Company and other co-producers had jointly invested in and produced the movie "Love Apartment". Without the plaintiff's permission, the six defendants repeatedly used "Love Apartment", "Zeng Xiaoxian" and "Hu Yifei", which Lianfan Company has the right to use, in the movie title, as well as the official Weibo name and content promoting the movie, promotional materials, and promotional activities. Registered trademarks, etc., belong to the use of trademarks in the sense of trademark law. Lianfan Company believed that the above-mentioned actions of the six defendants infringed Lianfan Company’s exclusive right to use the above-mentioned trademarks. In addition, all the ideas for the movie "Love Apartment" were taken from the TV series "Love Apartment" and "Love Apartment 2" to which Lianfan Company has the rights, and Lianfan Company has never authorized the six defendants to use the words "Love Apartment" in their movies. TV series related elements. The six defendants selected the same cast team as the original TV series to shoot the movie, and related the movie to the original TV series in the promotion, using words such as "The original cast reunited for ten years", "From 2009 to 2018", "Love Apartment takes you" "Youth is back" and other slogans can easily confuse the relevant public and unfairly occupy the market advantages and business opportunities of Lianfan Company, which violates Article 1 of the "People's Republic of China and the State Anti-Unfair Competition Law" The principles of fairness, good faith and generally accepted business ethics stipulated in Article 2, Paragraph 1, also constitute unfair competition.
To sum up, Lianfan Company requested the court to order the six defendants to stop all trademark infringement and unfair competition activities in promoting and distributing the movie "Love Apartment", and to jointly and severally compensate Lianfan Company for its economic losses and to stop the infringement. The reasonable expenses incurred by the behavior totaled 51 million yuan.