Shanzhai "N" Shoes, You Should Stop!

As the pioneer of "N" shoes, New Balance's trademark rights protection in China has been struggling for a long time. Recently, however, the success of the 4 case with New Balance as the plaintiff highlights the brand's determination to safeguard its rights in China.

　　 Heavy punches, New Balance's road to rights is another success.

It is reported that the new distributor of New Balance, China's new distributor (China) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "new Bai Lun company") initiated litigation in China's various local courts, and recently received 4 winning decisions in Beijing, Shenzhen, Nanjing and Suzhou local courts.

Among them, the new hundred company in Nanjing intermediate people's court prosecuted the case of trademark infringement and unfair competition in Fujian Jinjiang new Bai Lun Limited by Share Ltd (hereinafter referred to as "Fujian new Lun company"). The court of first instance fully supported the new pailun company's claim for compensation, and also ordered the defendant Fujian new Bai Lun company to change its "new Bai Lun" brand name.

According to public information, the Fujian new brun company, founded in 2015, is also a sports shoe production and marketing company. Its brand is "NIUBANLUNSI/ new banlen". The sides of the sneakers also use capitals, bold and sloping "N" letters. Not only that, New Balance also found that Fujian new Newell International Holdings Limited, the largest shareholder of new Bon company in Hongkong, applied for a large number of "New Balance owned" products on twenty-fifth categories of "shoes" and other commodities. "Identify" N "trademarks which are very similar. They are used by Fujian new Bai Lun company through transfer and authorization.

To this end, the Nanjing intermediate people's court, after receiving the prosecution of new pailun company, affirms that these actions of the new Bai Lun company in Fujian have constituted trademark infringement and unfair competition. Therefore, the court of first instance ordered that it compensate the new pailun company for a total of 3 million 550 thousand yuan infringement costs and change its enterprise name containing the "new Bai Lun" brand.

In fact, in the New Balance's "N" trademark series counterattack, a brand named "new belon leader" can not be underestimated.

It is understood that in 2008, Zhou Lelun, a natural person in Guangdong, registered the Trademark No. 4100879th "new hundred Lun" and the 4100880th "NEWBOLUNE" trademark respectively. Then Zhou Lelun authorized the former trademark to Guangzhou new hundred Lun Enterprise Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Guangzhou new Bai Lun company"), Jiangxi new hundred lead Sports Goods Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jiangxi new hundred lead company") and Guangzhou new hundred lead leading shoe industry Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Guangzhou new Bai Lun leader company").

The new company found that the three companies used the "new hundred Lun", "new bolon leader" and "NEWBAILUNLP" in their common production and sales of sports shoes. Meanwhile, the shoes of these shoes also used the bold N letters on both sides. At present, the three companies have opened more than 8000 shops in the whole country, making profits or not less than 1 billion 40 million yuan. Therefore, in 2017, the new Beijing company filed a lawsuit against the three enterprises in Dongcheng District people's court.

New Bai Lun company believes that the above three enterprises produce and sell shoes products with "N" letters, which are similar to the "N" letters of famous brands of New Balance, and the behavior of three enterprises has constituted unfair competition.

The people's Court of Dongcheng District, Beijing, first believed that the "N" logo on both sides of New Balance sneakers had already been identified with a certain reputation and had a certain impact on the commodity decoration. Jiangxi's new hundred lead company and Guangzhou's new lead run company's behavior would cause the public's confusion and mistaken recognition of the source of the goods and have an impact on the plaintiff's market reputation, thus forming unfair competition. Therefore, the court ordered Jiangxi new hundred lead company and Guangzhou new hundred lead leading company to stop the infringement immediately and compensate the new Bai Lun company's economic losses totaling 1 million 100 thousand yuan.

In addition, new hundred Lun companies also filed lawsuits in Shenzhen and Suzhou for two shops selling "new hundred lead" sports shoes.

In the Baoan District people's Court of Shenzhen City, Guangzhou Province, new Bai Lun company proposed that the "N" logo of the "new hundred lead NEWBAILUNLP" sports shoes sold by the defendant Shenzhen Baoan District Shi Yan blue fish leading the shoe store (hereinafter referred to as "blue fish leading the shoe store") is visually and "New Balance owned". "Trademark" is highly similar (infringing sports shoes are produced by Jiangxi new hundred lead company). Blue fish leads shoe store as footwear product operator, it is impossible not to know "New Balance" sneakers and their famous " "Logo. Under this premise, it will still be responsible for the infringement of goods, and it should bear the liability for tort compensation.

In the course of the trial, the court agreed that the new "Bai Lun leader NEWBAILUNLP" sneakers violated the trademark exclusive right of New Balance. However, the defendant was "not responsible for the infringement of the exclusive rights of other people's trademark" because he was "an individual operator who did not have professional legal knowledge and could not judge whether the infringing goods were infringing on the exclusive rights of others".

But another defendant, the one yuan department store in the inclined pond of Lou industrial town, Suzhou Industrial Park, has not been so lucky.

It is reported that the one yuan department store in oblique pond has also been sold with " "Logo" "new hundred lead NEWBAILUNLP" sports shoes, the manufacturer of goods is Jiangxi new hundred lead leading company and Guangzhou new hundred lead leading company. The people's Court of Suzhou Industrial Park first identified " "Character identification and New Balance owned" The trademark is an approximate trademark, while the one yuan department store as a professional operator of footwear products should know that it sells goods that infringe the exclusive rights of other registered trademarks. After considering the factors such as the scale of operation, the duration of torts and the subjective degree of infringement, the court concluded that the defendant had stopped the infringement and compensated the new Bai Lun company for a reasonable loss of 50 thousand yuan.

　　 Shanzhai is becoming more and more fierce, but the brand side is helpless.

Winning 4 successive campaigns is undoubtedly a milestone in the way of New Balance's anti-counterfeiting rights in China. But behind the victory, in fact, reveals the frustration of the brand side.

In the Baidu Post Bar's "new hundred bar", we can see that quite a lot of posts in the last 20 million posts are for shoes identification. It is not hard to find that because of the excessive number of sports shoes with "N" logo on the market, some consumers can not tell which is the genuine product. Until the experience, it is found that its quality is difficult to compare with the genuine products.

Shi Qing, senior manager of new Bolun company, said that the use of the bold letter "N" in the central position of the side of the sneakers is the landmark design of New Balance sneakers which have been used for a long time since 1970s. Some counterfeit New Balance brands also use the "N" decoration that is very similar to New Balance sports shoes on sports shoes, which easily lead to confusion among consumers. The market share of New Balance is still the second. Because of the poor quality of these counterfeit products, the damage to the market honor and reputation of the new long Lun company's long-term painstaking efforts is immeasurable.

In this regard, New Balance resolutely adopted intellectual property protection strategy in China to strengthen the right to trademark and the right to do so, and to strike a comprehensive attack on the brand of Shanzhai. On the China Trademark network, a total of 215 data were retrieved from the "new balance sports company", whose trademark matrix was launched with key trademarks such as "N", "NB", "New Balance" and "new hundred Lun".

According to the database of Chi Nai Bao, there are a total of 135 judicial documents on "New Balance". Among them, many of the parties are rights protection lawsuits initiated by New Balance official enterprises, such as the new balance sports company, the new balance sports shoes company and the new Bai Lun company.

It is worth noting that among the 135 referees, 86 cases are criminal cases. The cases are all goods sold by counterfeit registered trademarks. Among them, Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangsu and other places have become frequent New Balance brand counterfeit goods.

It can be seen that New Balance's road to intellectual property protection in China is still a long way to go, so this 4 successive winning cases are of great significance to the remodeling of New Balance brand.

Shi Qing mentioned that the trademark rights of the new balance company, which was approved to be registered in mainland China, the letter of the bold letter "N", and the right of upholding famous commodities were protected by courts in various courts throughout the country, making the company confident of China's judicial environment and steadfast in its determination to invest continuously in China.

"The new balance company will continue to actively release the voice of China's intellectual property protection to the industry, and actively maintain the market order of honesty and credit and fair competition, and unremittingly crack down on" infringement of famous brands and free riding ".

How to say no to tort?

In fact, the phenomenon of sports brand being "Shanzhai" and "trademark rush in" has always existed in China.

From day to day, Adidas has been busy promoting Adidas's "ADILIAO", "Adadila", "adisco" and other ineffective claims, to Puma's "sweeping" rights litigation, which has been launched all over the country, and now New Balance faces the dilemma of how to "clean up" the increasingly crowded "N" track.

The phenomenon of trademark infringement in sports industry not only causes huge economic losses to enterprises, but also bruise the enthusiasm of the whole sports industry in designing innovation, and those enterprises that embezzle and imitate brands all year round catch up with all the people's consumption upgrading. Against this background, it is imperative for sports brands to better protect intellectual property rights.

Famous sports brand is a long way to deal with trademark rights protection, and the resentment between piracy and piracy may also be the only way for the brand to grow. Fortunately, we see that with the rapid development of the economy and the continuous improvement of public awareness of the protection of intellectual property rights, China's trademark practice has developed to a more mature stage. The latest trademark law amendment, which came into effect in November 1, 2019, has also made special provisions for malicious registered trademarks. This is undoubtedly a good sign for famous foreign brands operating in China. After that, there will be more and more brands like New Balance, who will fight against piracy with judicial weapons and innovation.