In welcoming the “World Intellectual Property Day” on April 26th, the courts in several cities selected a series of representative and influential cases for open trials. On April 12th 2017, “Lannuo Shifulan” trademark infringement case, represented by Janlea lawyers, had an open trial at Shanghai Minhang District Court.
Sephora is a globally renowned cosmetics retailer and is called the “world’s cosmetics-retailing authority”. The company owns the right to exclusively use “Sephora” as a registered trademark. Shanghai Lannuo Cosmetics Co., Ltd. is a cosmetics producing company in Shanghai, who used the signs “Shifulan”, “Lannuo Shifulan”, “Sefora” and “Selora” in its commercial activities.
Janlea lawyers represented Sephora and filed trademark infringement civil litigation to Shanghai Minhang People’s Court against Shanghai Lannuo’s use of the mentioned trademarks. They participated in the entire trial of the case.
The court accepted the representing advice of Janlea lawyers and held as follows: The defendant, Shanghai Lannuo, used signs including “Shifulan”, “Lannuo Shifulan”, “Selora” and “Sefora”, which, respectively, constituted resemblance to “Sifulan” and “Sephora” trademarks that were approved for Sephora to use on products including cosmetics. The actions of Shanghai Lannuo constituted infringement on Sephora’s right to exclusively use registered trademark.
At the same time, the court also held as follows: the defendant put “Lannuo” and “Shifulan” in two rows when using the sign “Lannuo Shifulan”, with an obvious emphasis on “Shfiulan”. This indicated that the defendant deliberately exploited the reputation of the “Sephora” trademark. Therefore, the court would not accept the defending advice that the defendant’s “Shifulan” sign was a non-standard use of its approved “Lannuo Shifulan” trademark.
The court read the judgment at the open trial and ruled that Shanghai Lannuo should ceased its use of the mentioned infringing signs and pay compensation of 330,000 RMB for the economic loss and appropriate expenditure to Sephora.
