Trademarks are intangible assets of enterprises, so "competitions" between trademarks also occur from time to time. Recently, with the Trademark Review and Adjudication Committee of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (hereinafter referred to as the State Administration for Industry and Commerce) (hereinafter referred to as the Trademark Review and Adjudication Committee) With a ruling issued by the judges), the multi-year trademark battle between two well-known furniture companies has temporarily come to an end.
Because it is believed that Xuzhou Mark Martin Furniture Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Xuzhou Mark) applied for and was approved to register the No. 14255641 "Mark_D" trademark (hereinafter referred to as the disputed trademark) on the same category of products. Suspected of trademark infringement, Markor International Household Products Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Markor Home Furnishing) filed a request for invalidation with the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board. Recently, the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board made a ruling on this case, determining that the disputed trademark constitutes a similar trademark used on the same or similar goods as specified in Articles 30 and 31 of my country’s Trademark Law, and declared the disputed trademark invalid.
It is reported that Marker Home was established in 1995 and is a well-known furniture company in China. It has three trademarks registered at different times, which are the trademarks at issue in this case, namely: "Markor" (approved for registration in August 1997), "Markor Furnishings" (approved for registration in May 2004) ), "MARKORFURNISHINGS" (approved and registered in May 2015).
After years of market cultivation, the above trademarks have gained high social visibility. In August 2007, the "MARKORFURNISHINGS" trademark was recognized as a well-known trademark by the Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (hereinafter referred to as the Trademark Office).
Xuzhou Meike Martin is affiliated to Dongguan Yasi Furniture Co., Ltd., which is a well-known solid wood furniture manufacturer in China. In March 2014, Xuzhou Meike submitted a registration application for the disputed trademark to the Trademark Office. In February 2015, the disputed trademark was approved for preliminary review and announcement on Class 20 commodities. During the announcement period, Markor Home Furnishing raised objections. In September 2016, the Trademark Office made a decision to approve the registration of the disputed trademark.
In December 2016, Marker Home filed a request for invalidation of the disputed trademark with the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board. The Trademark Review and Adjudication Board believed that the disputed trademark and the three cited trademarks all contained the Chinese character "Meike", which constituted a similar superscript. In addition, the trademarks were used in the same scope. Therefore, the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board ruled that the disputed trademark was invalid.
Regarding a trademark, two well-known home furnishing companies have repeatedly fought against each other. Industry insiders said that this shows that relevant practitioners have realized the importance of intellectual property rights, including trademarks, to enterprises, and have done their best to Strive for relevant rights and interests. From this perspective, this is conducive to improving the awareness of intellectual property protection in the furniture industry.
However, how to effectively avoid risks, careful layout is the most important. Trademark Transfer Network would like to say that when enterprises deploy trademark strategies, they should start from all aspects of preparations such as corporate product image design, brand positioning, trademark registration and other related projects. On the one hand, enterprises should check whether there are trademark infringements and other behaviors in the market. At the same time, they should also examine themselves: check whether they have any behavior of "behaving like a famous brand" to avoid accidentally infringing the trademark rights of others.
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