Recently, the litigation against a manufacturer in Wenzhou for its infringement on trademark and unfair competition, filed by ASEA Brown Boveri Co., Ltd. and represented lawyer Zhang Hong and lawyer Xu Jin of Beijing Janlea Law Firm, was concluded at Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court. ABB’s litigation was fully supported by the Court.

ASEA Brown Boveri Co., Ltd. (ABB) was one of the Fortune Global 500 companies and is a leading manufacturer in the field of global electrical power and automation technology. As ABB’s popularity continuously increases, manipulations of the “ABB” trademark has been mounting. Recently, ABB discovered that a manufacturer in Wenzhou, by registering “UK ABB ELECTRONIC CO., LIMITED” as its company name in UK, registered “RDQABB” trademark at Trademark Office of China and a domain name that included “A-B-B” and committed other ridiculous actions to exploit ABB’s reputation in business. Therefore, ABB sued this manufacturer at Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court and appealed for an immediate end to its use of “RDQABB” trademark, its infringement action of using the company name of “UK ABB ELECTRONIC Co., LIMITED”, and the unfair competition. The court conducted reconciliation after beginning the trial. With the help of a third party, the two involved parties reached an agreement. The defendant, a manufacturer in Wenzhou was to stop using “UK ABB ELECTRONIC Co., LIMITED” and related Chinese company names immediately and applied to related offices in the UK to cancel its company name “UK ABB ELECTRONIC CO., LIMITED”. The defendant would not use texts that include “ABB” or similar wording as signs of the company in commercial activities, including the naming of the company and its websites. The defendant would also not apply for the registration of texts that include “ABB” or similar wording as its trademark, company name, domain name or other commercial signs.

This case had important meaning as a model case. After ABB commissioned the legal team of Beijing Janlea, the team made specific litigation strategies, under the circumstances that the defendant had already obtained registration for its “RDQABB” trademark from the Trademark Office, registered the company name “UK ABB ELECTRONIC CO., Limited” in UK, and registered “A-B-B” domain name. By employing a serious of legal actions, including filing a trademark dispute to the Trademark Office, filing a domain name dispute to domain name dispute institution and filing litigation of trademark infringement and unfair competition to Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court, the legal team obtained the groundbreaking litigation result of defendant voluntarily cancelling the “RDQABB” trademark and the its infringing company name with registration institution in the UK. The lawful rights of ABB’s registered trademark, company name and domain name were fully protected.