Jaguar Land Rover Won Trademark Dispute

2014/08/21

Recently, Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court made a judgment about the administrative processing filed by Jaguar Land Rover Public Ltd. (Jaguar Land Rover) and revoked the registration of the trademark in question that was approved by the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (TRAB) under the State Administration for Industry and Commerce of China.


The trademark in dispute is No. 6280133 JAGUAR, which was filed by Zhejiang Xiling Electric Co., Ltd. in September 2007 and certified to be used on Class 11 goods including beverage cooling equipment, freezers and refrigerators. Within the legal objection period, Jaguar Land Rover submitted the objection application, claiming that the trademark in dispute was the copy of its previously filed trademark No. 1352142 JAGUAR and should not be approved for registration. After the objection was rejected, Jaguar Land Rover applied for review of the trademark objection.


In October 2013, TRAB made the decision that the two trademarks were certified to be used on different goods and there were obvious differences in terms of functions, consumers, sales channels, etc. without confusing the public. Therefore the trademark in dispute was approved for registration.


Jaguar Land Rover refused to accept the result and filed an administrative proceeding to the courts. The court held that the characters and image of the cited trademark had been respectively identified as China Famous Trademark in 2004 on Class 12 goods including motor vehicles and parts. Considering the existing evidence, the cited trademark had constituted the China Famous Trademark on automobile products. The trademark in dispute contained the completely same characters as the cited trademark and its targeted market overlapped with the cited trademarks. Coexisting of the two trademarks may mislead relative public to connect the trademark in dispute with Jaguar Land Rover, which may cause the situation of improper use of famous trademark. If the trademark in dispute had been registered, it would weaken the significance of the cited trademark. Thus, the court revoked the trademark in dispute.


(Source: China IP News)