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Beijing Fineland IP Firm Succeed in Safeguarding its Rights During Trademark Opposition Action on Behalf of "爱丽丝"
Time:2022-07-08

According to regulations related to Article 33 of PRC Trademark Law, our company, Beijing Fineland IP Firm, entrusted by TORRE ORIA, S.L., filed opposition action against trademark "爱丽丝" (No. 49273652) which was applied by Nanjing Forladula Trading Company on the commodity category 40 and preliminarily examined and approved by the Trademark Office. Our company requested the Trademark Office to reject the registration of the trademark application, and finally succeeded in safeguarding its rights.


 1. The trademark "ALICE IN GRAPELAND" is a brand that is originally created and used for a long time by the opponent, which has established high popularity and influence in China before the date of the application of the opposed mark. The prominent parts of the opposed mark "爱丽丝" and the cited mark "ALICE IN GRAPELAND" which is successfully registered by the opponent abroad belong to the direct translation relationship, and they are designated to use on similar goods with strong correlation, which belongs to "Preemptively register a trademark that has already been used by others and has certain influence by improper means" and violates Article 32 of the Trademark Law, and the registration shall not be approved.

 

 2. The opposed party was in explicit trade contact with the opponent before the filing date of the opposed trademark. Knowing that the opponent built the trademark in advance, the opposed party still registered the opposed mark which corresponds to the Chinese translation of the opponent’s prior mark on similar goods with high relevance that the opponent has long been engaged in. It seriously violates Article 15.2 of the Trademark Law, and the opposed trademark shall not be approved for registration.

 

The opposed party has maintained explicit trade contacts with the opponent before the filing date (August 27, 2020) of the opposed trademark. In particular, "Zheng Junjie", as the legal person of the opposed party's company (the first Chinese sommelier in Spain), registered the opposed trademark with obvious subjective malice even clearly knowing the opponent’s trade name and series brand.

 

3. The opposed party repeatedly copied and imitated the famous brand of the opponent, maliciously registered the opposed trademark and even had the behaviour of maliciously registering trademarks without the purpose of real usage, which can easily cause market chaos, and disturb the economic order of socialist market, and cause enormous economic losses to the opponent and have great bad influence on consumers. It violates Article 4, Article 7, Article 10.1(8), Article 44 of the Trademark Law, and the opposed trademark shall not be approved for registration.


There are 527 trademarks applied for registration under the opposed party "Nanjing Forladula Trading Company" which cover 37 categories, and even include category 4, 5 and 13 and some other extremely special product category. It completely out of a firm's normal business development needs. The opponent’s subjective malice from copy other’s main brand is very obvious. The opposed trademark shall not be approved for registration.

 

    4. In this case, the brand of the opponent has a high reputation through the opponent’s continuous usage and publicity. If the logos of both parties coexist in the market, it will easily cause the relevant public mistakenly believe that the opponent’s series trademarks may have a certain connection, thus causing confusion and false recognition of the source of goods. According to Article 10.1(7) of the Trademark Law, the opposed trademark shall not be approved for registration.


According to Article 30 and Article 35 of the Trademark Law, the CNIPA issued the decision: the opposed trademark "爱丽丝" (No. 49273652) was ruled to be rejected for registration.