Wuliangye sued jiuliangye for infringement, and Wuliangye won a compensation of 9 million yuan
4hw.com.cn: Recently, the Supreme People's court decided that Binhe group's production and sales of "jiuliangye" and "jiuliangchun" wine products constituted an infringement of the trademarks of "Wuliangye" and "wuliangchun" of Wuliangye Group, and ordered Binhe group to compensate Wuliangye Group for a loss of 9 million yuan.
The reporter found that in addition to "jiuliangye" and "jiuliangchun", there are also "qiliangye" and "Dawu liangye", which have also become the defendants of Wuliangye and have been sentenced by the court for trademark infringement.
The lawyer said that the victory of "Wuliangye" is a model case for national courts to try cases near famous brands, and it has positive guiding significance for the trial of cases that dilute well-known trademarks.
'jiuliangye' and 'jiuliangchun' were found to be infringing by the supreme law
In March 2013, after accepting the cases of jiuliangye and jiuliangchun, Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's court made the first instance judgment in January 2014. The judgment found that Binhe group's production and sales of "jiuliangye" and "jiuliangchun" liquor products did not infringe the trademark rights of "Wuliangye" and "wuliangchun".
Wuliangye Group refused to accept the first instance judgment and appealed to the Beijing High Court in February 2014. The Beijing High Court made a final judgment in May 2016: rejecting the appeal and upholding the original judgment.
Wuliangye Group applied to the Supreme Court for retrial when it lost both the first and second instance. In November 2016, Wuliangye Group applied to the Supreme People's court for retrial. In June 2017, the Supreme Court ruled to bring the case to trial and suspend the execution of the original judgment.
On November 23, 2017, the cases of "jiuliangye" and "jiuliangchun" were heard in the Supreme People's court. In May 2019, the Supreme People's court made a retrial judgment on the infringement of "jiuliangye" and "jiuliangchun".
The Supreme People's court held that the logos used by Binhe group are "Binhe jiuliangye", "Binhe jiuliangchun", "jiuliangye" and "jiuliangchun", of which the words "Binhe" of "Binhe jiuliangye" and "Binhe jiuliangchun" are smaller, and the words "jiuliangye" and "jiuliangchun" are more prominent. Compared with Wuliangye and wuliangchun, the alleged infringing logo 'jiuliangye' and 'jiuliangchun' is only one word, and the difference is two words representing numbers. Considering the popularity of 'Wuliangye' and 'wuliangchun' series trademarks, the use of 'jiuliangye' and 'jiuliangchun' is easy to confuse and misidentify the source of goods by the relevant public.
Liu Yihong, the attorney of Wuliangye group, said that since July 2002, the riverside group has started applying for registration for thirty-third categories of liquor products, namely, nine grain liquid, nine grain spring, nine grain alcohol, nine grain king, and so on, which is the same as Wuliangye group's Wuliangye, five grain spring, five grain alcohol and five grain king series trademark, and is rejected by the trademark office. Binhe also applied for registration on liquor products and used the trademark "Binhe nine grain liquid", "Riverfront nine grain spring", "Riverfront nine grain king", "Binhe nine grain alcohol" and other trademarks, and the trademark words "nine grain liquid" nine grain spring were used prominently in the bottle and outer package, especially the writing methods of "liquid" and "spring" were similar to those of the five grain company. It reflects Binhe group's obvious subjective intention to borrow others' trademark goodwill, so it constitutes trademark infringement.
The Supreme People's court decided: the riverfront group stopped producing and selling Baijiu liquor marked with the words' nine grain liquid ',' nine grain spring 'or the nine grain liquid' and 'nine grain spring'. Binhe Group paid compensation totaling 9 million yuan to Wuliangye Group.
There is no prominent font on Binhe jiuliangye official website
On the forenoon of July 26th, the upstream reporter found that the "Gansu river food industry (Group) Co., Ltd." was founded in 1984 and is now the 100 largest Chinese Baijiu industry in the nine official website of riverside. Its brands include Binhe jiuliangye, Binhe jiuliangchun, Jiuniang Binhe, Binhe wine, Guofeng wine and other famous Gansu wines. Binhe brand is a famous trademark in Gansu Province.
In its product display column, there are Binhe jiuliangye series, Binhe jiuliangchun series, etc. Upstream news reporters noted that its new product 'binghe jiuliangye' has the same large packaging font, and there is no situation that the word 'Binhe' is smaller and the word 'jiuliangye' is more prominent.
'dawu liangye 'and' qilianye 'were convicted of infringement
Upstream news reporters found that in addition to "jiuliangye", there were "qilianye" and "Dawu liangye", which also became the defendants of Wuliangye. Finally, the court sentenced them to trademark infringement.
Upstream journalists searched the China Trademark network with 'Sichuan Yibin Wuliangye Group Co., Ltd.' as the applicant, and retrieved 3090 trademarks, including 'yiliangye', 'erlianye', 'sanliangye', 'silianye', 'Wuliangye', 'liuliangye', 'qilianye', 'balianye', 'jiuliangye', 'shilianye', 'qianliangye', etc.
Except for 'sanliangye', they are all effective trademarks. In addition, hundreds of trademarks similar to Wuliangye have been registered, such as' Wuliangye ',' wuyinye ',' Wuliangye ',' wugenye ',' Wuliangye ',' Wuliangye '. The vast majority of these trademarks were registered on March 31, 2006.
On July 22, 2011, Beijing Second Intermediate People's court ruled that the "qilianye" series liquor produced and sold by Beijing yinwubao company infringed the exclusive right to use Wuliangye's trademark, requiring Beijing yinwubao to immediately stop the production and sale of qilianye liquor and compensate Wuliangye for its losses. The court held that the composition of 'qilianye' and 'Wuliangye' was similar, and the defendant's production and sales of qilianye liquor violated the plaintiff's exclusive right to use the trademark of 'Wuliangye'. The defendant's defense is not tenable; The defendant Beijing yinwubao company shall immediately stop the production and sales of qilianye liquor and compensate the plaintiff Wuliangye Co., Ltd. for the loss of 50000 yuan.
In July 2012, Hebei Xushui Dawu Busan Hefu Liquor Sales Co., Ltd. was rejected by the Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry and commerce when applying for the trademark of calligraphy 'Dawu grain liquid'.
On September 21, 2015, Zibo intermediate people's court heard the trademark dispute between Sichuan Yibin Wuliangye Co., Ltd. and Hebei Dawu Liquor Co., Ltd.
After hearing the case, Zibo intermediate people's court held that the main part of the logo of "Dawu liangye" is "Wuliangye", which has exactly the same pronunciation as the trademark of "Wuliangye". When the relevant public hears "Dawu liangye", it is very easy to be confused with "Wuliangye", so that the public mistakenly believes that there is a specific connection between the two in the source. Accordingly, Zibo intermediate people's court ruled that Dawu liangye infringed the exclusive right to use Wuliangye's trademark and that Dawu liquor industry compensated Wuliangye Group for economic losses and reasonable expenses of 1 million yuan.
Subsequently, Dawu group appealed to the Shandong Provincial High Court. After hearing by Shandong Provincial High Court, on July 13, 2016, the court upheld the original judgment made by Zibo intermediate people's court in the first instance.
Stop malicious imitation confusion and deter infringement
In view of the intellectual property litigation of Wuliangye Group, Li Jia, deputy to the National People's Congress and general manager of Zhonghao Chenguang Chemical Research Institute Co., Ltd., believes that intellectual property cases focus on various characteristics of civil, criminal and commercial affairs, with a high degree of complexity. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the legal system for strong protection of intellectual property as soon as possible and gradually improve the status of China's intellectual property legal system.
Li Jia said that we should learn from the legal compensation system for intellectual property infringement in some developed countries and regions and raise the upper limit of legal compensation for intellectual property infringement in China as soon as possible; On the basis of the existing punitive compensation system for intentional infringement of trademarks, the punitive compensation system for intentional infringement of patents and copyrights shall be added.
In addition, for some intellectual property cases with unclear boundaries, Li Jia suggested to explore the establishment and promotion of the 'technical investigator' system, form a four in one technical investigation and identification system including technical jury, technical appraisal, technical investigation and technical consultation system, strengthen the connection between intellectual property administrative law enforcement and criminal justice, and investigate criminal responsibility if necessary.
Yu Kaiyuan, deputy to the National People's Congress and vice chairman of the Sichuan Federation of literary and art circles, said that the famous brand itself is a powerful weapon for market competition. This allows some enterprises without a sense of legitimate competition to use the "free rider" brain.
Liu Yihong, acting lawyer of Wuliangye Group, said that the victory of Wuliangye is not only a typical case at the highest level, but also a model case for national courts to try cases near famous brands, but also has positive guiding significance for the trial of cases that dilute well-known trademarks. The significance of this case is to stop malicious imitation and confusion, deter many infringers, maintain the market order of fair and benign competition, and protect domestic famous brands.