The name of the enterprise and the registered trademark marked on the commodity may be recognized as the producer of the commodity.
Published:
2024-01-02
In intellectual property litigation cases, if the enterprise name and trademark logo are marked on the infringing goods at the same time, it should be inquired whether the trademark logo belongs to the enterprise; if so, it further proves that the producer of the goods is the enterprise marked on the goods; if not, the owner of the trademark should be inquired and the owner of the trademark should be listed as the defendant at the same time, in this way, it will be more helpful to find out the producers of infringing goods and clarify the main body of responsibility.
Trial Summary
The accused infringing goods clearly marked the defendant's registered trademark, at the same time marked the defendant's company name, commodity two-dimensional code after scanning also pointed to the defendant's company, the defendant will be the name of the enterprise and registered trademark reflected in the accused infringement
The product indicates that it is the manufacturer of the product, and the defendant company can be determined to have produced and sold the accused infringing goods without the need to verify the authenticity of the product.
Brief of the case
The plaintiff company was established in 2002, and its business scope includes the design, development, and sales of internal combustion engines and hydraulic products. The company has good corporate reputation and high product reputation. The plaintiff company authorized its wholly-owned subsidiary to produce and sell oil and other commodities. The plaintiff company made an original design for the packaging and decoration of engine oil products and licensed its subsidiaries to use them. The above-mentioned brand-new packaged oil products have been actively promoted by the plaintiff company and its subsidiaries, and have a high reputation and are known to the relevant public. After investigation by the plaintiff's company, it was found that the oil products sold by the defendant's business department and produced by the defendant's company a and company B prominently used the trademark and other marks of the plaintiff's company on the front, back and prominent positions on the certificate of approval of the barrel body, which were the same or similar to the registered trademark of the plaintiff. In addition, the packaging and decoration of the products involved in the case, no matter in the aspects of pattern design, font design, arrangement and combination, completely imitate the packaging and decoration of the products of the plaintiff's subsidiaries, which makes consumers mistakenly believe that the products have some relationship with the plaintiff's company and its subsidiaries, which can easily cause confusion and misunderstanding of consumers, and their behavior constitutes unfair competition. The legal representatives of defendant A company and defendant B company are both defendant C, and company A and company B jointly commit infringement. As a lubricant manufacturer in the same industry, the two defendants should know the popularity and reputation of the plaintiff company, but violate the provisions of the trademark law and the anti unfair competition law. The intentional production of infringing goods involved in the case is a malicious infringement, and the amount of compensation should be determined from a high level. Defendant C Business Department did not fulfill its reasonable duty of care to examine and sell the infringing products involved in the case, which also infringed upon the legitimate rights and interests of the plaintiff. With the prosecution, the defendants are required to stop the infringement and compensate for the losses.
Defendants A, B, and C jointly argued that the accused infringing product was not the product they produced, and the plaintiff's packaging alone was not enough to prove his claim, and applied for judicial appraisal of the authenticity of the accused product.
Defendant Ding Business Department did not appear in court and did not submit a written defense.
After trial, the court found that the plaintiff enjoyed the exclusive right to use the registered trademark involved in the case in accordance with the law, and within the validity period, the plaintiff's trademark had a high reputation, and the corresponding trademark had been recognized as a well-known trademark. The plaintiff enterprise has a high reputation and has won many honors. The plaintiff's oil commodities and other packaging and decoration were determined by the court's civil judgment in 2015 to constitute well-known commodity packaging and decoration.
The accused infringing products obtained by the plaintiff are marked with the enterprise name of Company A, the attached quality undertaking is stamped with the official seal of Company A, and the two-dimensional code scanning of the product certificate points to the website of Company A; The above certificate of approval, quality undertaking and barrel label are all marked with the registered trademark of Company B. Compared with the plaintiff's, the product packaging and decoration are similar in terms of overall composition, color matching, main pattern, arrangement position, composition of constituent elements, treatment of detailed parts, and expression of content in an isolated state.
Defendant A is a limited liability company (wholly owned by natural persons), and its business scope is to pack and sell lubricating oil and antifreeze. Defendant C is a wholly-owned shareholder of its natural person. Defendant B Company, whose business scope is the distribution and sale of lubricating oil. Defendant Ding's business department is an individual industrial and commercial household, and its business scope is wholesale and retail of lubricating oil and auto parts.
The judgment result: 1. Defendants A and B to stop producing and selling engine oil products similar to the products of the plaintiff company and its subsidiaries in packaging and decoration and infringing the exclusive right to use the registered trademark of the plaintiff company; 2. Defendant D Business Department to stop selling engine oil products similar to the products of the plaintiff company and its subsidiaries in packaging and decoration and infringing the exclusive right to use the registered trademark of the plaintiff company; 3. Defendants Company A and Company B jointly compensate the plaintiff company for economic losses and reasonable expenses of XX million yuan; 4. the defendant and bear joint and several liability for the above-mentioned third debt of Defendant A Company; 5. Defendant Ding Business Department to compensate the plaintiff company for economic losses and reasonable expenses for stopping infringement totaling XX million yuan; Other claims of the plaintiff company and its subsidiaries were 6. rejected.
Referee Points
1. the trademark of the plaintiff company has a high reputation, the accused infringing goods are the same as the goods approved for use by the trademark, and the words "XX machine special oil" are marked in large font on the front of the package, of which the word "XX" plays the main identification role, which belongs to trademark use, and "XX" is the same as the trademark of the plaintiff company, it is easy to cause the relevant public to misunderstand the source of the goods or believe that there is a specific connection with the plaintiff's registered trademark goods, which can easily lead to confusion and infringe the plaintiff's exclusive right to use the registered trademark. In view of the fact that the use of the words "XX machine special oil" in the accused infringing goods has been protected by the trademark law, the plaintiff separately claims that it constitutes an act of unfair competition that infringes on the name of the goods to a certain extent, and this court will no longer judge and support it.
2. in this case, the plaintiff company has won many honors. The plaintiff's products are sold all over the country and have high market popularity and influence. At the same time, the packaging and decoration of the oil products involved in the case are unique in design, color, text and their arrangement and combination. It has the distinctive characteristics of distinguishing the source of goods. After long-term use and large-scale sales, it can be regarded as packaging and decoration with certain influence. Compared with the packaging and decoration of the plaintiff's engine oil products, the packaging and decoration of the accused infringing goods are similar in terms of overall composition, color matching, main pattern, arrangement position, composition of constituent elements, treatment of detailed parts, expression of contents, etc., which are observed in the isolated state to make the relevant public misunderstand the source of the goods, it constitutes an act of unfair competition involving the unauthorized use of other people's merchandise packaging and decoration.
3. the accused infringing goods clearly marked the three registered trademarks of defendant company B, and at the same time marked the enterprise name of defendant company a. the two-dimensional code of the goods also pointed to company a after scanning. the second defendant reflected the enterprise name and registered trademark on the accused infringing goods to indicate that they were the manufacturer of the goods. the defendant company a and company B could be determined to have produced and sold the accused infringing goods without the authenticity of the products, the Court shall not grant permission to the defendant's application for judicial authentication.
4. Defendant C, as a one-person shareholder of Defendant A, fails to provide evidence that the company's property is independent of his own property, he shall be jointly and severally liable for the debts of Blue Line Company.
Experience of undertaking the case
In intellectual property litigation cases, if the enterprise name and trademark logo are marked on the infringing goods at the same time, it should be inquired whether the trademark logo belongs to the enterprise; if so, it further proves that the producer of the goods is the enterprise marked on the goods; if not, the owner of the trademark should be inquired and the owner of the trademark should be listed as the defendant at the same time, in this way, it will be more helpful to find out the producers of infringing goods and clarify the main body of responsibility.
If the defendant is a one-person limited company, it is best to refer to the shareholders of the company in accordance with Article 63 of the Company Law (this refers to the shareholders, not the legal representative, the legal representative and the shareholders may not be the same person, and attention should be paid to the distinction.) They are listed together as defendants and are required to bear joint and several liability.
Relevant laws and regulations
1. the People's Republic of China Law on Trademarks (2019 Revision)
Article 48 The use of a trademark referred to in this Law refers to the use of a trademark in goods, their packages or containers, or in documents dealing in goods, or in advertising, exhibitions and other commercial activities for the purpose of identifying the source of goods.
Article 57 Any of the following acts shall be an infringement of the exclusive right to use a registered trademark:
A (I) uses a trademark identical to its registered trademark on the same kind of goods without the permission of the trademark registrant;
(II), without the permission of the trademark registrant, uses a trademark similar to its registered trademark on the same commodity, or uses a trademark identical or similar to its registered trademark on similar commodities, which is likely to cause confusion;
……
Article 63 The amount of compensation for the infringement of the exclusive right to use a trademark shall be determined according to the actual loss suffered by the right holder as a result of the infringement; if the actual loss is difficult to determine, it may be determined according to the benefits obtained by the infringer as a result of the infringement; if the loss of the right holder or the benefits obtained by the infringer are difficult to determine, it shall be reasonably determined by reference to the multiple of the trademark license fee. For malicious infringement of the exclusive right to use a trademark, if the circumstances are serious, the amount of compensation may be determined at more than one time and less than five times the amount determined in accordance with the above-mentioned methods. The amount of compensation shall include the reasonable expenses paid by the right to stop the infringement.
……
If the actual losses suffered by the right holder as a result of the infringement, the benefits obtained by the infringer as a result of the infringement, and the license fee of the registered trademark are difficult to determine, the people's court shall, according to the circumstances of the infringement, award compensation of less than 5 million yuan.
2. Law of the the People's Republic of China against Unfair Competition (2019 Amendment)
Article 6 A business operator shall not commit any of the following acts of confusion, causing people to mistake it as another person's commodity or having a specific connection with another person:
(I) the unauthorized use of the same or similar logos as the name, packaging, decoration, etc. of the goods that have a certain impact on others;
……
Article 17 If an operator violates the provisions of this Law and causes damage to others, he shall bear civil liability in accordance with the law.
If the legitimate rights and interests of an operator are harmed by an act of unfair competition, he may file a lawsuit in a people's court.
The amount of compensation for an operator who has suffered damage as a result of an act of unfair competition shall be determined in accordance with the actual loss suffered by the operator as a result of the infringement; if the actual loss is difficult to calculate, it shall be determined in accordance with the benefits obtained by the infringer as a result of the infringement. If an operator maliciously infringes on trade secrets and the circumstances are serious, the amount of compensation may be determined at one time to five times the amount determined in accordance with the above-mentioned methods. The amount of compensation shall also include the reasonable expenses paid by the operator to stop the infringement.
If the operator violates the provisions of Article 6 and Article 9 of this law, and the actual loss suffered by the right holder due to the infringement and the benefits obtained by the infringer due to the infringement are difficult to determine, the people's court shall, according to the circumstances of the infringement, give the right holder compensation of less than 5 million yuan.
Companies Act of the People's Republic of China (as amended in 2018)
Article 63 If the shareholders of a one-person limited liability company cannot prove that the company's property is independent of the shareholders' own property, they shall be jointly and severally liable for the debts of the company.
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