Tencent sued the copycat WeChat and received a compensation of 13.1 million

According to Qichacha, recently, Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Tencent Computer System Co., Ltd., and Xiamen Lianyi Technology Co., Ltd. The second-instance civil judgment of the unfair competition dispute between the company and Guangzhou Dengtang Communication Technology Co., Ltd. has been made public.

The court held that:

The verdict was that Lianyi Company should compensate Tencent Company for economic losses and reasonable expenses of ***10 million yuan, and the software operator Dengtang Company should compensate Tencent Company for ***3.1 million yuan. Yuan.

In the first instance, Tencent believed that the compensation amount was low and filed an appeal.

Tencent believed that Liaoyi Company and Dengtang Company were obviously subjective and intentional. Liaoyi system is the main business of Liaanyi company. The company has a large number of employees, high sales price, large sales volume and wide range. It caused huge losses to Tencent and Tencent Computer.

Some users have registered WeChat accounts to control, send and receive various information through the Liaison WeChat management system, which has reduced the use of official WeChat software of Tencent Company and Tencent Computer Company, and increased the use of Tencent Company and Tencent Computer Company. Operational pressure, and is used by large companies such as Ctrip, China Unicom, and New Oriental.

It is reported that the "Liaoyuan Easy-WeChat Management System" provided by Lianyi Company requires a licensing fee:

The personal version is 980 yuan per year, including 3 licenses, and additional licenses are 300 yuan per year. Each, the enterprise version is 4980 yuan per year, including 10 licenses, the additional license is 450 yuan each, and the enhanced version is 5980 yuan per year.

Previously, the court of first instance ruled that Liaoyi Company should compensate Tencent Company for economic losses and reasonable expenses of *** 3.5 million yuan, of which Dengtang Company was jointly and severally liable for 2 million yuan, and Tencent Company believed that 3.5 million yuan The amount of yuan compensation was obviously low, far lower than the profit amount of the two companies, and not enough to compensate for the losses of Tencent Company and Tencent Computer Company, so the second instance appeal was made.

The court of second instance recognized Tencent’s above-mentioned appeal, and finally ruled that Lianyi Company should compensate Tencent for economic losses and reasonable expenses of ***10 million yuan, of which the software operator Dengtang Company was responsible for 3 million yuan. Joint and several liability.

Regarding this matter, some netizens said: "If you use other people's trademarks, you will definitely be prosecuted."

Recently, Xiaomi has applied to register multiple "Lei Jun Super Big Cup" trademarks, which are internationally classified into education, entertainment, convenience food, etc., and the trademark status is "trademark application pending".

In addition, Xiaomi also applied to register trademarks such as "Xiaomi XL CUP" and "XL CUP".

Analyzing the trademarks registered by some major manufacturers, we can find that after registering a trademark, they will also register similar words or graphics with the same trademark as trademarks.

For example: Xiaomi mobile phones have registered black rice, red rice, yellow rice, etc. These are defensive trademarks to prevent others from registering them to gain popularity of the brand.

As the most direct image reflection of a company, a trademark can be said to condense the achievements of the entire company.

Once a trademark is successfully registered by others and loses the trademark rights, it will undoubtedly give away its own competitive advantage to others, which will cause huge brand and economic losses to the enterprise.

Antler Alley is almost a typical case.

Antler Alley, which only obtained its trademark at the end of 2019, has not only spent up to 30 million to fight counterfeiting over the years, but also missed the golden age of its own development. The leading brand that once ranked alongside Heytea and Naixue has now fallen behind.

I believe that by now, the importance of registered trademarks no longer needs to be explained. The best defense for a brand is prevention.

Taking the initiative to register a trademark is only a drop in the bucket compared to the money and effort spent on defending rights in the future.