Because it believed that Yilong Garment Factory processed and produced products bearing the ONLY trademark, it was suspected of infringing on its legally held exclusive rights to the ONLY registered trademark, so Lingzhi Company sued the garment factory to court. So how will the court ultimately rule? Let’s take a look at the Bajie Intellectual Property Trademark Transfer Network:
It is understood that Lingzhi Company is authorized to use the ONLY trademark No. 1447254 and has the right to defend its rights through legal means in its own name. After years of market operation, ONLY has become a well-known women's clothing brand.
On December 1, 2014, law enforcement officers from the Haizhu Branch of the Guangzhou Administration for Industry and Commerce in Guangdong Province (hereinafter referred to as the Haizhu Branch) inspected the business premises of Yilong Garment Factory and found that it had been processed in the factory. 980 pieces of clothing bearing the ONLY logo. After verification, Yilong Garment Factory has not obtained the authorization or permission from the trademark owner, nor can it produce other supporting documents. The ONLY trademark owner has identified it as a product that infringes the exclusive rights of the registered trademark. Subsequently, the Haizhu Industrial and Commercial Bureau confiscated 980 pieces of clothing involved in the case and fined Yilong Garment Factory 20,000 yuan.
However, not long after, Lingzhi Company filed a lawsuit with Haizhu Court, requesting the court to order Yilong Garment Factory to immediately stop producing and selling clothing products that infringed on the exclusive rights of ONLY's registered trademark, and Yilong Garment Factory to compensate Lingzhi The company suffered an economic loss of RMB 100,000.
Haizhu Court held after trial that the existing evidence proved that Yilong Garment Factory privately processed and produced short-sleeved T-shirts with the ONLY trademark without the permission or authorization of Lingzhi Company or the trademark owner involved in the case, and Investigated and dealt with by Haizhu Industrial and Commercial Bureau. In view of this, the above-mentioned behavior of Yilong Garment Factory has constituted an infringement of the exclusive rights of the ONLY registered trademark held by Lingzhi Company, and it should bear civil liabilities such as cessation of infringement and compensation for losses.
In the first-instance judgment, the court determined that the behavior of Yilong Garment Factory constituted use within the meaning of trademark law and constituted an infringement of ONLY’s exclusive right to register the trademark, and rejected the appeal of Yilong Garment Factory. In this case, based on the nature and duration of the infringement by Yilong Garment Factory, the scope of use of the exclusive right to register the trademark that was infringed, the scale of business, the popularity of the trademark, and the reasonable expenses of Lingzhi Company to stop the above-mentioned infringement, etc. factors, Yilong Garment Factory was judged to compensate the economic losses and reasonable expenses of 55,000 yuan as appropriate.
Elong Garment was dissatisfied and subsequently appealed to the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court. Yilong Garment Factory only earned processing fees and did not enjoy the intangible value of the trademark. It should not be regarded as use in the sense of trademark law. .
The Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court held after hearing that the focus of the appeal was whether Yilong Garment Factory had infringed the exclusive rights of the trademark involved; and whether the amount of compensation awarded by the first instance court was reasonable within the statutory scope.
After trial, the court held that according to Article 57, Paragraph 1 of the Trademark Law, using a trademark that is the same as its registered trademark on the same kind of goods without the permission of the trademark registrant is an infringement of registration. The behavior of the trademark exclusive rights, and the product category used by both is clothing, which belongs to the same kind of goods. The behavior of Yilong Clothing Factory is an infringement.
As for the amount of compensation, the court held that Yilong Garment Factory claimed that the clothing raw materials and infringing logos were provided by customers and that they were all confiscated afterwards. However, it did not provide any evidence involving entrusted processing, so it could not determine what it claimed. It is impossible to determine whether the processing source is true, and whether the actual processed quantity is the quantity confiscated by the industrial and commercial administration department. Yilong Garment Factory claims that it has not made a profit, which lacks basis. In addition, the court of first instance applied the statutory compensation method and determined that Yilong Garment Factory should compensate Lingzhi Company in the amount of 55,000 yuan. This amount was not abnormally high.