Focus on 3C authentication
In court, the parties have no objection to the genuine tires produced in Japan. The focus on their desktop is the qualitative problem of the defendant's behavior of selling tires, that is, whether the defendant's behavior violates the plaintiff's exclusive right to use trademarks.
Before solving this focus, the focus of the dispute between the two sides focused on tire certification.
Huang Yibiao told reporters that all tires sold in China need 3C certification. This is compulsory administrative certification. However, although the tires sold by the defendant were Michelin tires imported from Japan, they were produced in European and Brazilian markets, which did not meet the standards of 3C certification in China and should not be sold in China market.
The defendant proposed that products without 3C certification trademarks could not be identified as trademark infringement products. The State Council's Regulations on Certification and Accreditation stipulates that tire products need national certification. However, this regulation is an administrative regulation, which only stipulates the administrative responsibility for using products without 3C certification in business activities, but does not stipulate the responsibility for trademark infringement.
3C certification is an administrative license. How can it have anything to do with the exclusive right to use trademarks? Huang Yibiao said that according to Article 7 of the Trademark Law of People's Republic of China (PRC), trademark users should be responsible for the quality of the goods they use. However, the products used in China have not been approved by the plaintiff and passed 3C certification, so it is difficult to guarantee their safety. If such products are marked with the plaintiff's trademark, once there is a problem, it will undoubtedly seriously affect the plaintiff's trademark reputation and the plaintiff's interests.
In addition, Huang Yibiao also said that unauthorized use is the basic condition for trademark infringement. In this case, although the goods accused of infringement and their trademarks are all made by the plaintiff, whether and when to put the goods with the plaintiff's trademark on the market and which country to put them on the market are exactly the rights of the plaintiff's trademark right. Obviously, the products accused of infringement were put on foreign markets, and it was impossible for the plaintiff to put on the China market without the compulsory safety certification of the China government. Therefore, the defendant's sales behavior in this case belongs to the obvious infringement of using the plaintiff's trademark without permission.
The court ruled that the defendant should compensate the plaintiff for the loss.
As the presiding judge of this case, Chen Jianwen told the reporter, "This case should be viewed from two aspects: on the one hand, from the perspective of the relevant public, the first is the legality of selling this kind of tire. This involves 3C authentication. According to the product catalogue, the tires involved in this case are tire products that need national compulsory certification. The tires of the same model without 3C certification cannot be put on the market, and the related sales activities are illegal and should be stopped. Some people say that even if this kind of behavior should be stopped, it is the administrative organ, not the trademark owner. If you look at it from another angle, from the consumer's point of view, when you buy such an illegally sold tire without safety certification, you want to claim your rights and can't find anyone to sell it to you, so you want to complain. On the one hand, you can go to the relevant administrative organs to complain. On the other hand, can you ask the manufacturer to return the goods? Obviously, consumers can look for manufacturers. So why do consumers look for manufacturers? Consumers can only find the trademark owner through the trademark marked on the tire. So this tire is linked to the interests of the trademark owner. How can you say that this tire has nothing to do with the trademark owner? "
"On the other hand, judging from the trademark function infringed by this behavior. The trademark infringement involved in this case is just the opposite of the previous trademark infringement principle, and the relevant public will not misunderstand it. They can directly attribute the responsibility of producing and selling tires that do not meet China's safety standards to the Michelin trademark registrant from the Michelin series trademarks marked on the tires. All negative comments about this tire will be attributed to the trademark owner, and the sales of this tire in China have nothing to do with the trademark owner. For example, if a tire specially designed for tropical areas runs in ice and snow, it may lead to a puncture. At this point, the relevant consumers will have a negative evaluation of the quality of this tire and ask the trademark owner to take responsibility. In the end, because the tires were sold in China without the permission of the trademark owner, although the trademark owner did not bear civil liability for compensation, the relevant public who did not know the truth would still think that the quality of the tires of this brand was not good when they saw the accident. This is a negative evaluation of the brand. Others think that nothing has happened yet. Why should we stop? We know that the law regulates legal relations, not specific events. Do we really have to wait until after the tragedy of car accident death to remember that such behavior should be stopped? One of the purposes of 3C certification is to provide security, reassure consumers and keep the relationship between consumers and trademark owners true.
On April 24th, the Intermediate People's Court of Changsha City, Hunan Province made a first-instance judgment. The defendants Jackie Tan and Ou Can were sentenced to stop the infringement and compensate the plaintiff for the economic loss of 5,000 yuan. As of press time, the case is still in the appeal period.