Among many functional drinks, Red Bull is undoubtedly the best, accounting for half of the industry. But the dispute over this small can of drink has been going on for more than four years because of one question: whose red bull is this? Recently, a series of trademark disputes between Thailand Tencel Health Care Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Thailand Tencel) and Red Bull Energy Beverage Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Beijing Red Bull) have made the latest progress. On November 25th, Beijing Higher People's Court announced the first-instance judgment on the trademark case of Red Bull, and rejected all claims of Beijing Red Bull.

I remember that Yan Bin, the "father of China functional drinks", introduced Thai Tencel Red Bull vitamin functional drinks to China after obtaining the trademark authorization. With the position and advantages of "the pioneer of functional beverage market", China Red Bull has rapidly increased its market share in the domestic market, creating a single product record in the beverage industry in China. Today, China Red Bull has developed into a leading brand in the domestic beverage industry, which not only opened up a new blue ocean of functional beverage market in the domestic beverage market, but also led the development of the entire functional beverage market in China. However, due to the distribution of interests and other issues, Yan Bin has had a dispute with Tencel in Thailand since then. Since August 216, Tencel Thailand has filed lawsuits against a number of companies under the Hua Bin Group, accusing them of infringement of the exclusive right to use registered trademarks and unfair competition. According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 2 disputes between the two sides.

China Red Bull believes that the first-instance judgment of Beijing High Court evaded the above-mentioned core issues and only focused on whether China Red Bull Company has the right to examine and judge the trademark ownership of "Red Bull Series Trademarks", which deviated from the real requirements of the company. According to previous market reports, a statement issued by Red Bull's official website on October 16th, 218 showed that Yan Bin, the founder of Red Bull China, had a conflict with Tencel of Thailand in trademark registration. After the death of Xu Shubiao in 212, from the end of 215, with the trademark registration about to expire, eleven children of the Xu Shi family had serious differences on the cooperative relationship determined by the 5-year agreement authorized by their father and signed by their mother, and Thai Tencel only wanted to settle and dissolve with Red Bull China.

According to the results of the first trial, Tencel Thailand is in a leading position in the trademark competition. China Red Bull not only failed to obtain 3.753 billion pounds of compensation and exclusive trademark rights, but also had to bear nearly 2 million litigation costs.