Recently, lawyer Zhang Hong and lawyer Xu Jin represented Beijing Jieao Garment Co., Ltd. (Jieao Company) in its serial trademark opposition review administrative litigations against the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board and a company in Zhejiang. The cases were concluded at Beijing No. 1 People’s Court and the litigation claim of our client, Jieao Company, was supported by the Court, who repealed the opposition review adjudication the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board made on this case.

The plaintiff of this case, Jieao, was a famous manufacturer of down jackets, and the Jieao trademark it owned was approved by the State Administration of Industry & Commerce as a Well-Known Trademark. The third party of this case, a company in Zhejiang was a fairly influential shoes manufacturer locally and used Aojie trademark on its shoe products. The main point of the dispute was whether or not the Aojie trademark, which was applied on type 25 “socks, gloves, belts and ties” by the third party, constituted a similar trademark on the same of similar products with Jieao trademark, which was registered on type 25 clothing products by Jieao company.

After the trial, the Court ruled as follows: the opposed trademark and the cited trademark had resemblance in textual elements, shape of characters and pronunciation, constituting similar trademark. The socks, gloves, belts and ties products associated with the opposed trademark and the clothing products associated with the cited trademark were the same or had close connections in functional uses, places of sales and consumer populations. The two were similar products, and therefore the litigation claim of the plaintiff that the application and registration of the opposed trademark violated article 28 in the Trademark Law had tenable reasons. The Court ruled that the original trademark opposition review adjudication would be repealed and demanded the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board make new trademark opposition review adjudication on “Aojia” trademark.

The serial cases would be a typical example of extension application based on prior basic trademark conflicting others’ priorly registered trademark. In these cases, Janlea’s legal team formulated the correct litigation strategies and methods through the analysis and research on the cases. The team not only successfully cut the connection between the prior trademark of the third party and the “socks, gloves, belts and ties” productions, but also expanded the protection on the business reputation of the plaintiff had on clothing products to socks, gloves, belts and ties products. The ruling of the serial cases, in reality, made a precise division between the markets of the two involved parties. It protected the market profit structure of our client to the greatest extent and was praised by our client.