Recently, Beijing High People's Court made a final judgment on a trademark invalidation administrative dispute over No.8397269 trademark REDLINE (trademark in dispute), holding that the trademark in dispute was registered by means of deception and upholding the first- instance judgment.

The trademark in dispute was filed for registration to the Trademark Office (TMO) under the former State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) by a person surnamed Chen on June 17, 2010, and would be certified for use on Class 14 goods including watches and clocks on July 7, 2011. On December 6, 2016, the trademark in dispute was transferred to Shanghai Yiquan Trading Company after cleared by the TMO. According to No. 1695 issue of the Notice on Revocation of Registered Trademarks and No. 1772 issue of the Notice of Trademark Correction published respectively by China National Intellectual Property Administration on May 13, 2020 and December 6, 2020, the trademark in dispute was revoked for registration on all goods on the grounds that it was not in actual use for three consecutive years.

On December 21, 2016, the Francebased Creaddict Company lodged an invalidation request to SAIC's Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (TRAB), asserting that Chen submitted a false license of self- employed businessman to the TMO as part of the registration application documents to gain registration for the trademark in dispute, which violated Paragraph 1 of Article 41 of the Chinese Trademark Law.

According to a government information notification made by Chaoyang Branch of the former Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce on October 12, 2016 and submitted by Creaddict to the TRAB, the business license information of Chen, the owner of the trademark in dispute, could not be found in company registration databases.

On February 6, 2018, the TRAB held that under Paragraph 1 of Article 41 of the Chinese Trademark Law, the trademark in dispute was registered by deception and made a decision to invalidate the trademark in dispute.

The disgruntled Yiquan company then brought the case to Beijing IP Court, claiming that the evidence cannot prove the trademark in dispute was applied for registration by Chen through means of deception, its ownership of the trademark in dispute was gained by legitimate procedure, the company did not know what Chen had done and its legitimate rights should be protected.

Beijing IP Court rebuffed Yiquan Company's request on March 15, 2019, holding that the trademark in dispute was registered by means of deception.

Unwilling to just move on, Yiquan Company then appealed to Beijing High People's Court.

Beijing High held that the false application file submitted by Chen wrongly informed the TMO and the registration seriously distorted the trademark registration order, constituting the circumstance that the trademark in dispute was registered by means of deception under Paragraph 1 of Article 41 of the Chinese Trademark Law. The evidence Yiquan provided cannot prove it had paid corresponding consideration for the use of the trademark in dispute. The transfer of the trademark in dispute would neither change the fact that the trademark in dispute was registered by means of deception nor affect the evaluation whether the registration of the trademark in dispute ran counter to Paragraph 1 of Article 41 of the Chinese Trademark Law. In this connection, the Court rejected Yiquan's appeal and upheld the first-instance judgment.

Source: CNIPA