Abstract
We,
Background
The opposed mark is confusingly similar with the client's marks for "
The comparison of the marks is as below:
In the opposition, we mainly argued that:
1) The opposed mark is similar to the cited marks in terms of the composed letters, overall appearance, and meaning. Their goods are similar to or highly connected with each other. Based on the high reputation of the cited marks in mainland
2) The opposed mark was filed in obvious bad faith by imitating the cited marks, which violates the principle of good faith.
On
Inspiration of the Case
It is obvious that the parties' marks are similar, because the composed letters of the marks are the same with slight difference in sequence of several middle letters. The key issue of this case is that only part of the designated goods of the opposed mark, namely, goods in subclasses 2505 and 2507, are similar to those of the client's marks. Over the remaining dissimilar goods, we mainly argued the high reputation of the client' mark, certain connection between the parties' goods as well as the bad-faith of the opposed party.
The CNIPA supported such claims and decided not to approve the opposed mark for registration for all of the goods, mainly due to that the opposed party has clear bad-faith intention in filing other's brands and the CNIPA's increased efforts to crack down on malicious registrations, which will provide greater protection for the rights of genuine trademark owners. It also gives us a revelation that we should thoroughly investigate the other party's lack of good faith in the opposition/invalidation actions with supporting evidence.
On the other hand, Chinese market becomes more and more important and popular in recent years, and more and more brands are paying high attention to the Chinese market. It is important for the brand owners to make early preparations for trademark protection before entering the Chinese market, file trademark applications for registration with relatively broader protection scope, conduct market monitoring and take action against the bad-faith registration in time to protect their rights and avoid any possible confusion to be caused in the market.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
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