The difference between NewBalance and New Balance:

NewBalance is the American New Balance Sports Company

New Balance is the Liduo Shoe Industry of Guangzhou Liwan District

New Balance is owned by a natural person named Zhou Lelun

In July 2000, the "New Balance" trademark was transferred to Dolido Shoes.

In April 2003, the American New Balance company was approved to register the "NEWBALANCE" trademark in the 25th category of "shoes".

In April 2004, the original owner of the "Bailun" trademark transferred the approved trademark to Zhou Lulun.

In June 2004, Zhou Lolun applied to register the "New Balance" trademark.

In December 2006, New Balance Trading (China) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "New Balance Company"), New Balance's authorized sales company, was established.

In November 2007, New Balance authorized New Balance to use the above trademark in China.

In January 2008, Zhou Lolun's "New Balance" trademark was approved for registration. The company he authorized also produces men's shoes with the "New Balance" trademark and sells them in shopping malls.

Tracing back to its origin:

Usually after any brand enters China, we consumers will give it a Chinese homophonic translation, such as NIKE, ADIDAS, etc., after all, it was earlier The popularity of English is not high in 2017, so it is easier to give a Chinese name.

The problem lies here. The Chinese homophony of “NEW BALANCE” corresponds to “New Balance” and “New Balance”.

In August 1998, Dongfeng Dongyiduoliduo Footwear Manufacturing Factory in Chaoan County applied to the Trademark Office to register the "New Balance" trademark on shoe products, and was approved for registration in October 1999. .

In July 2000, it was transferred to Guangzhou Liwan District Duoliduo Shoes (hereinafter referred to as Duoliduo Shoes). Subsequently, Dolido Shoes used multiple "New Balance" trademarks on different goods and services.

After learning about "New Balance", New Balance began to investigate the "NBL", "NEW BALUNUS" and "New Balance" of Dolido Shoes on the 25th category of clothing, shoes and other commodities. , "New Balance" and other trademarks.

Objections and invalidation applications are also supported by the Trademark Review and Adjudication Committee, such as the trademark No. 3891464 applied by Lidoli in 2004. The Trademark Review and Adjudication Board ruled against registration during the objection review.

Ever since, the two of them began a long-term love-fighting trademark opposition case. The case went from the first instance to the second instance. At that time, the Beijing Higher People’s Court made the following judgment:

In this case , the Chinese "New Balance" written in white in the objection and its corresponding Chinese pinyin are the distinctive identifying parts of the trademark. Although the cited trademark (New Balance Company trademark) is an English trademark, the Chinese pronunciation of the English “NEW BALANCE” is basically the same as that of “New Balance”. Moreover, the evidence submitted by New Balance Company can prove that the cited trademark has a certain degree of popularity.

Therefore, when the two are used on the same or similar goods at the same time, the relevant public may be confused about their origin, or may mistakenly think that they are series of trademarks provided by the same goods provider. Therefore, the opposed trademark and the cited trademark constitute similar trademarks used on similar goods.

Extended information:

Brand infringement

NEWBALANCE’s “late strike” was claimed by a Guangzhou business owner

The NEWBALANCE brand involved in the case was launched in the United States in 1906 Founded, it is a well-known foreign sports shoe brand.

According to the defense opinions of the defendant New Balance Trading (China) Co., Ltd. (residing at Changning Road, Changning District, Shanghai) and the official website promotion of the brand involved, the brand is the second largest shoe company in the United States and has gradually Become an international sports brand.

In 2006, Shanghai New Balance Company was established, mainly responsible for selling the NEW BALANCE series of sports shoes in

the country, and soon occupied a large share of the running shoe market. In this process, in order to adapt to the Chinese market culture, the company chose to use the Chinese name of "New Balance" for publicity and marketing, and used the "New Balance New Balance" logo in its advertisements to promote its products.

However, just as "New Balance" was becoming more and more famous, Mr. Zhou Moulun from Guangzhou advertised New Balance Trading (China) Co., Ltd. and one of its dealers in Guangzhou on the grounds of infringement. Go to court. In Zhou Moulun's words, "New Balance" is a "counterfeit" in the legal sense.

It turns out that Zhou Moulun claimed that the "New Balance" trademark had already been registered in my country, and the matter could be traced back to 1996. At that time, Zhou Moulun's family first registered the "Bailun" trademark.

The specific situation is that the registered trademark No. 865609 "Bailun" was approved for use on Class 25 "clothing, shoes, hats, socks" and other commodities, and was approved for registration on August 21, 1996. The trademark was approved to be transferred to Zhou Moulun in April 2004.

Later, Zhou registered a series of "joint trademarks", namely the "New Balance" registered trademark No. 4100879, which was also approved for use on Class 25 goods. Zhou Moulun was approved for registration in January 2008. the trademark.

At the same time, Zhou Moulun also set up a company to produce men's shoe products with the trademarks of "Bailun" and "New Balance", and set up sales counters in large shopping malls.

The plaintiff claimed that the defendant company had opened “New Balance Official Flagship Store” and “New Balance Children’s Shoes Flagship Store” on websites such as “Tmall” and “JD Mall”.

Because the defendant uses "New Balance" as a trademark, it also uses "New Balance" to identify products in online stores, and the shopping receipts issued by specialty stores indicate "Thank you for purchasing New Balance products." ", leading a large number of consumers and operators to mistakenly believe that the "New Balance" trademark is the Chinese trademark of the defendant New Balance's products.

Based on this, the plaintiff believed that the defendant’s behavior severed the specific connection between the plaintiff, as the trademark owner, and the “New Balance” registered trademark, and inhibited the plaintiff from establishing and expanding the “Bailun” and “New Balance” trademarks. The value space constitutes trademark infringement.

According to the plaintiff’s statistics, from July 2011 to the time of the lawsuit, New Balance’s total sales of the accused infringing products exceeded 1 billion yuan, a huge gain. The plaintiff sued and demanded that the defendant New Balance immediately stop the infringement and eliminate the impact, and also demanded compensation of 98 million yuan in losses and reasonable rights protection expenses.

In response, the defendant New Balance argued that "New Balance" was used as the Chinese name of NEW BALANCE's products, but "New Balance" was not used prominently on the products as a corporate name, which was a bona fide use.

It also claimed that the time it used "New Balance" to sell goods was much earlier than the time when the plaintiff used the "New Balance" trademark to sell goods, and that its use did not cause any confusion among consumers or the relevant public, and did not constitute infringement. .

The court determined that the case was a "malicious use" in the first instance despite knowingly and improperly.

The Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court held that the plaintiff's "Bailun" trademark had been registered in 1996 and could easily be used. Find out this information through public channels. Not only that, the defendant's affiliated company (New Balance Company) requested the Trademark Office to reject the plaintiff's application for registration of the "New Balance" trademark in December 2007, but it was not accepted.

This shows that the defendant New Balance is fully aware of the registration status of the "Balun" and "New Balance" trademarks, but it still chooses to use "New Balance" to label and promote its products.

The Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court held that, despite knowing that the plaintiff had obtained the “New Balance” trademark registration, the defendant continued to widely use the “New Balance” logo in sales and publicity, so it could not be found The defendant's use of the word "New Balance" was a bona fide use.

The defendant's argument that it has prior rights to "New Balance" cannot be established.

The defendant also claimed that "New Balance" is the translation of its product name NEW BALANCE, but the Chinese free translation of NEW BALANCE is "New Balance", and the defendant New Balance also claimed that its affiliated company New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc. .

It is the "New Balance Sports Shoe Company" and also claims that the previous name of its product was "New Balance". Therefore, the defendant New Balance used "New Balance" as the translation of its product name NEW BALANCE. The opinion that it did not infringe the plaintiff's registered trademark rights of "Bailun" and "New Balance" cannot be established.

Judging from the defendant’s financial evidence preserved by the court, the defendant New Balance’s operating profits during the infringement period were as high as approximately 195.8 million yuan, and judging from the manner and scope of its use of the “New Balance” logo, The defendant made huge profits from its infringement and should bear corresponding infringement liability.

The first-instance judgment of the Guangzhou Intermediate Court: The defendant New Balance Trading (China) Co., Ltd. immediately stopped using "New Balance" to label and promote its products; it compensated the plaintiff RMB 98 million.

Publish a statement to eliminate the impact on the homepage of the "New Balance (China) Official Website" and the homepages of the "New Balance Flagship Store" and "New Balance Children's Shoes Flagship Store" opened on "Tmall Mall".

After the first-instance judgment of this case was made, New Balance has not yet announced whether it will appeal.

On June 23, 2016, the Guangdong Provincial Higher People's Court made a judgment on the "New Balance" trademark dispute case. New Balance, a well-known American footwear company, lost the case and was ordered to compensate Chinese citizen Zhou Lelun for economic losses of 5 million. Yuan, and published a statement on the homepage of its "New Balance (China) Official Website", "New Balance Flagship Store", and "New Balance Children's Shoes Flagship Store" to eliminate the impact.

Reference materials

Baidu Encyclopedia--New Balance