"Shanzhai" Won The "Genuine"? Japan'S "Muji" Has Been A Little Annoyed Lately.

Japan's "Muji" has been a little annoyed lately.

Recently, the Beijing Higher People's court made a final judgment on the infringement of trademark rights against Muji. The company decided to stop the infringement of Beijing cotton field Textile Co., Ltd. and the Beijing exclusive rights of registered trademarks of Muji, and issued a statement at Tmall's "MUJI MUJI official flagship store" and the entity store in mainland China to eliminate the infringement effect and compensate for economic losses of 500 thousand yuan and a reasonable cost of over 12.6 yuan.

It is understood that at present, Muji has been released in Tmall's "MUJI MUJI official flagship store", and the name of some products has also been changed from "MUJI MUJI" to "MUJI".

The cotton field company and its trademark Licensing companies Beijing Muji good products plan and its subsidiaries, Shanghai Muji production and sale of rag, towel, bath towel, bathroom mat and other commodities, used "Muji", "Muji" words, infringe on their rights to the trademark involved, and then filed with Beijing intellectual property court.

According to the judgment document, the plaintiff cotton field company of the case is the owner of the No. 7494239th "Muji" trademark (hereinafter referred to as the trademark involved). The trademark was registered in 2001 and approved for use in twenty-fourth categories of "cotton, towel, towel blanket, bath towel, pillow towel, floor towel, bed sheet, pillowcase, quilt, quilt cover, cushion and cushion cover" commodity. Beijing Muji was founded in June 2011, and cotton field is one of its investors. In June 2011, cotton field authorized Beijing Muji to use exclusive trademark in China for the production, sale and promotion of the designated commodity under the trademark.

It is reported that one of the defendants in the case was registered in a Japanese company. In May 2005, it established Shanghai Muji, which mainly deals in groceries and other commodities.

At present, after media reporters log in to Tmall's MUJI MUJI official flagship store, Muji has released the relevant "solemn statement" under the "bulletin" column of the online shop. It said that "in 2014 and 2015, it used the" Muji "trademark registered by other companies in the category of cloth, towels, bedspreads, and so on. Therefore, according to the relevant judgment," the marking of the trademarks of the above products has been rectify ".

At the same time, at present, Tmall MUJI MUJI official flagship store search sheets, blankets, pillowcases and other products can be seen in all product descriptions used only the name of "MUJI", and the display of trademark images also avoided the emergence of brand names.

According to media reports, Shanghai had previously mentioned that "in all countries and regions outside China, including 24 Categories of commodities," the "good plan" has all the "Muji" trademark rights. The only exception is the sale of 24 types of commodities in China, that is, the trademark rights owned by Beijing cotton field Party, which must remove the "Muji" in the "MUJI Muji" when making the commodity tag. The reason for the related litigation is mainly due to the failure of the Shanghai company in making the Chinese tag of the 24 category of commodities, resulting in the four words of "Muji" not being thoroughly removed, thus giving the Beijing cotton field party a reason to initiate litigation.

According to the judgment of relevant cases, in China, the 24 Categories of trademarks registered as "Muji" were first registered by Nanhua industrial trading company of Hainan, valid until April 27, 2021, and then transferred to the plaintiff of the relevant litigation - Beijing cotton field textile company established in 2000. Although the good plan had applied to the Trademark Office for registration of the "Muji" trademark in 1999, it only covered sixteenth, 20, 21, 35, 41 categories of goods or services, and has not yet applied to the Trademark Office for registration of "Muji" trademark until twenty-fourth days before the date of application for registration of the objection trademark. This has become the key to litigation disputes.

For the loss of Muji, the legal profession believed that the Japanese Muji did not advance the registration of the trademark before entering the Chinese market, leading to China's "Muji" trademark being first registered in some commodity categories.

In fact, Muji's trademark registration is not an example. Many overseas brands are faced with this problem in China. In the past, when the brand of Korean 3CE STYLENANDA, known as cosmetics, was introduced into the Chinese market this year, a Chinese company has already registered "3CE" with the name of 3 CONCEPT EYES. At the same time, the product content of China 3CE brand is very similar to that of Korean 3CE brand.

In addition, I.T group issued a statement shortly ago that Wakubo Rei's double line brand PLAY COMME des GARCONS is only officially designated agent dealer in China, and in August this year, suspected fake brands were found in Beijing's major shopping malls. According to media reports, the so-called imitation brand C.d.G.PLAY is a registered brand in the United Kingdom. Its trademark was registered successfully at the end of January last year. Now its owner is Lok fun limited, which is registered in London, and it can also be queried in China.

At present, a domestic enterprise with a certain trademark awareness has a reasonable trademark layout before carrying out production and operation. It should register trademarks as far as possible in terms of goods or services related to the goods or service categories produced or operated by the enterprises, or even register the whole category, so as to prevent the beforehand of other enterprises in advance. Some enterprises will inspect similar trademarks in the relevant market in a few years before entering the overseas market, so as to prevent rush registration.