Supreme Court Set Limits on Recognition of Well-Known Trademark
马宁
【全文】
The Supreme People’s Court Set Limits on Recognition of Well-Known Trademark[1]
Patrick Ma
China’s Supreme People’s Court (the “Supreme Court”) promulgated the Interpretation on Hearing Civil Dispute with Respect to a Well-Known Trademark (the “Interpretation”) on April 22, 2009 which is effective as May 1, 2009. The Interpretation indicates that judicial recognition of well-known trademarks will be strictly examined to prevent companies from deliberately creating trademark disputes as a means to boost the profile of their products.
I. Courts will only recognize well-known trade marks when absolutely necessary
According to the Interpretation, recognition of well-known trademarks would be likely made only in the following three types of situations:
(i) The rightful owner of an unregistered trademark sues other parties for using its trademark (or the Chinese translation, or the imitation) in identical or similar goods or service, or the rightful owner of an unregistered trademark is defending itself when another party holding a same or confusingly similar registered trademark claims trademark infringement against such rightful owner;
(ii) The rightful owner of a registered trademark sues other parties for using its trademark (or the Chinese translation, or the imitation) on dissimilar goods or service; and
