Lately, lawyers of Beijing Janlea Trademark Agency Co., Ltd, i.e. Mr. Zachary Zhang and Mr. Andy Xu, brought a suit against Si Fu Lan Biological Technology Co., Ltd for its infringement on legitimate rights and unfair competition on behalf of SEPHORA, which has been concluded by Guangzhou Yuexiu District People's Court. The claim of Janleas’s client, i.e. SEPHORA, is fully supported by the court. 

SEPHORA is the brand of approximately 2000 free-to-buy chain stores for cosmetics in 26 countries and regions under the world’s biggest luxury enterprise, i.e. LVMH, and thus known as “Authority of Global Retail of Cosmetics”. On Dec 19, 2011, the defendant -Si Fu Lan Biological Technology Co., Ltd, without authorization, performed industry and commercial registration on business projects including “wholesales; retails; cosmetics” with the shop name of “SI FU LAN in Chinese”. Besides, the defendant also applied the said enterprise name in various commercial activities such as the website www.sephoracn.cn, labels for products and packages. Moreover, the defendant also adopted “SI FU LAN in Chinese” as its trademark in commercial activities including the website-www.sephoracn.cn managed by itself and packages of its products.

After hearing, Guangzhou Yuexiu District People's Court rendered the judgment as follows:

1. The defendant shall stop infringing the plaintiff’s exclusive right to use the registered trademark “SI FU LAN in Chinese” under reg. No. 4059185 at once.

2. The defendant shall stop infringing the plaintiff’s exclusive right to use the registered trademark “SI FU LAN in Chinese” under reg. No. 4059185 at once.

3. The defendant shall stop unfair competition infringing the plaintiff’s shop name rights to “SI FU LAN in Chinese” and “SEPHORA” immediately.

4. The defendant-Si Fu Lan Biological Technology Co., Ltd, within 30 days since the legally valid date of the judgment, shall apply to alter its enterprise name with administrative authorities for industry and commerce. The altered enterprise name shall not contain words “SI FU LAN in Chinese”.

5. The defendant shall compensate the plaintiff’s economic loss of 1,500,000 RMB.

The typical significance of this case lies in as follows:

After hearing, the holds that since the word “SI FU LAN in Chinese” is a self-created one within extremely high distinctiveness, the defendant’s malice of hitching the plaintiff’s enterprise name is obvious, for it registered the plaintiff’s shop name “SI FU LAN in Chinese” with high publicity as its enterprise name. Despite the fact that the defendant’s enterprise name was approved of registration by authorities for industry and commerce, its registration and use of the said enterprise name is illegitimate and thus violates the principle of fairness, honesty and credibility in civil activities. The defendant’s using the plaintiff’s enterprise name will inevitably lead to misidentifications in market, disturb normal competition order and thus constitute unfair competition. Hence, the defendant shall take all the civil liabilities by stop infringing the plaintiff’s legitimate rights and compensating the plaintiff’s losses. Therefore, the court judged that the defendant-Si Fu Lan Biological Technology Co., Ltd, within 30 days since the legally valid date of the judgment, shall apply to alter its enterprise name with administrative authorities for industry and commerce and that the altered enterprise name shall not contain words “SI FU LAN in Chinese”.

With more and more trademark infringement cases where an enterprises’ renowned brands are hitched by means of registering the name of the above-mentioned enterprises and cases involving unfair competition at the moment, in this case, Janlea’s lawyers fulfilled its goals of making the defendant change its enterprise name and thus stopping its infringement on the legitimate rights of the plaintiff through legal channels, which preserves client’s legitimate interests effectively and serves as an excellent example of hearing similar cases hereafter.