Hundreds of toilet water companies have been sued for trademark infringement due to the production of "Honeysuckle" toilet water.
In the two related cases, the Intermediate People's Court of Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province revoked the original judgment in the second instance, determined that the defendant's two Jiangxi companies did not constitute trademark infringement, and rejected the plaintiff Shanghai Bili Cosmetics Company's claims.
The Paper reported earlier this year that 60 companies from the Jiangxi Health and Disinfection Products Industry Association were sued by Shanghai Bili Cosmetics Co., Ltd., the holder of the "Honeysuckle" trademark, for producing "Honeysuckle Toilet Water" and other products. In most cases, companies are convicted of infringement and compensated.
The "honeysuckle toilet water" sold by these companies was also forced to go offline from e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, 1688, and JD.com.
Subsequently, many companies in Jiangsu, Guangdong and other places also reported that their toilet water products were also sued for trademark infringement because of the three characters "Honeysuckle", and each case was awarded 150,000 yuan in damages.
However, in the process of obtaining trademark files, the accused enterprise found that the trademark "Honeysuckle" was revoked 27 years ago because it directly represented the main raw material of the product and was improperly registered.
The "Honeysuckle" trademark lawsuit was therefore questioned as "touching porcelain-style rights protection".
Peng Mei News noted that in addition to the Zhongshan Intermediate People's Court's second-instance judgment that Bili Company lost the case, the Supreme People's Court and Sichuan High Court have retrial and arraigned the previous court's support of Bili Company's relevant cases, and there is no verdict after the arraignment.
The toilet water packaging highlighted the word "honeysuckle" and was sued and awarded compensation
According to previous reports by The Paper, Honeysuckle is the name of a medicinal plant, which has the effects of clearing away heat and detoxifying, dispelling prickly heat and refreshing.
Adding honeysuckle extract to toilet water, the industry calls it "honeysuckle toilet water".
This kind of toilet water named after a certain ingredient also includes snake gall toilet water, musk toilet water and so on.
Beginning in 2020, Shanghai Bili Cosmetics Co., Ltd., on the grounds that it holds the "Honeysuckle" trademark, has successively brought some enterprises that produce and sell "Honeysuckle Flower Dew" to the court, claiming that the defendant has infringed the exclusive right of the "Honeysuckle" trademark.
Most of these enterprises are located in Zhangshu City, Yichun City, Jiangxi Province, which is a national production base for disinfection products.
Wu Standing Committee, Secretary-General of the Jiangxi Health and Disinfection Products Industry Association, introduced that from the beginning of 2020 to the end of 2021, there were 60 defendants in the industry association.
Some of the cases that have been sentenced show that the lawsuit of Bili Company has basically been supported by the court, and the sued enterprise has been awarded compensation ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yuan.
In court, the accused companies all mentioned that their products are registered with proprietary trademarks, and the "honeysuckle" is prominently marked on the toilet water bottle, just to remind consumers that the product has added honeysuckle, a traditional Chinese medicinal plant ingredient. Therefore, it is only used for descriptive purposes, rather than trademark use of the word "honeysuckle".
Many sued companies also stated that they did not know that "Honeysuckle" was a trademark for cosmetic products.
Peng Mei News noticed that Minchen Company, where the well-known daily chemical brand "Dilihuazhixiu" is located, was also convicted of infringement for its toilet water because the product bottle prominently marked "Honeysuckle", and compensated Bili Company 150,000 yuan.
On April 28, 2021, the second instance of the Jiangsu Higher Court held that the "Honeysuckle" logo of "Tihuazhixiu" was slightly different from the registered trademark of Bili Company, but the pronunciation, words and meanings were the same. The two can be considered as constituting similarities.
The font of "Honeysuckle" marked on the front of the accused infringing goods is eye-catching and prominent, and the font is obviously larger than the trademark of Mingchen Company's "Tihuazhixiu".
Subjectively, it is difficult to call it goodwill, and objectively, it is easy to cause confusion or misunderstanding by the relevant public.
Judging from the national precedents, most of the judgments that constitute infringement are as follows: "The accused infringing product needs to express that it contains honeysuckle, and it should be marked in a reasonable manner in good faith. The front and back of the bottle are prominently marked "Honeysuckle" prominently. ', which is an improper use."
Standing Committee Wu introduced that in the face of the losing judgment and the pressure of Bili Company's claims, "a large number of enterprises in the association signed the so-called trademark understanding agreement ranging from 50,000 to 150,000 yuan, and paid compensation; a lot of compensation was paid to Bili Company. Shareholders, or the personal bank card numbers of outsiders, or paid to the account of the law firm involved in the lawsuit. At present, the well-documented compensation amount has reached several million yuan.”
According to the statistics of lawyers representing relevant cases, Bili Company has been infringed by its "Honeysuckle" trademark. Since 2019, it has initiated more than 200 lawsuits in batches, each claiming about 100,000 yuan, and the total claim amount may exceed 10 million yuan. Yuan.
The Supreme People's Court decides to remand a "Honeysuckle" trademark case
In addition to acknowledging compensation and reconciliation, there are also many companies that resolutely refuse to accept the judgment of infringement.
This is the case for Jiangsu Suzhou Shiyan Biological Daily Chemical Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Shiyan Company).
In December 2019, Shiyan Company's "Qingrun" brand honeysuckle toilet water was sued for infringement, and the plaintiff in the first trial compensated Bili Company 100,000 yuan.
Both parties objected to the appeal.
In December 2020, the Jiangsu Higher Court of the second instance upheld the infringement determination and ruled that Shiyan Company should compensate Bili Company 120,000 yuan.
Shiyan Company believes that Bili Company intends to use the trademark as a tool for claiming to obtain illegitimate benefits through malicious litigation, so it decides to apply to the Supreme Court for retrial.
During the lawsuit, attorney Zhao Zhiqing obtained the relevant files of the "Honeysuckle" trademark from the State Intellectual Property Office, showing that on January 27, 1994, the trademark No. 603857 "Honeysuckle" involved in the case was revoked by the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce. And was required to return the "registered trademark certificate".
The reasons for the revocation include that when the trademark is used in cosmetics, it directly represents the main raw materials of the goods, which violates the "Trademark Law" and "has been improperly registered".
The announcement of revocation was made in 1995, and according to the law at that time, the ruling was final and could not be reconsidered.
Strangely, the revoked trademark was transferred twice without showing the restoration of rights, and was finally acquired by Bili Company around 2010.
Beginning in 2019, Bili Company began to carry out the "Honeysuckle" trademark rights protection litigation in batches.
Shiyan Company applied to the Supreme People's Court for retrial for two reasons: First, the revoked trademark has no legal effect, and there are major flaws in the right foundation of the honeysuckle trademark.
Neither the first-instance nor the second-instance court found out that Bili Company concealed the fact that the trademark was revoked, which made the important facts of the case unclear; "Honeysuckle" and Bili Company are not the only or main correspondence in the market.
The court should reserve space for other relevant market operators and the general public to reasonably use the raw materials or trade names of "Honeysuckle", so as to prevent Bili Company from monopolizing the "Honeysuckle Toilet Water" market and disrupting the order of fair competition.
On March 24, 2022, the Supreme People's Court issued a ruling, deciding to remand the honeysuckle case that Shiyan Company applied for a retrial. During the retrial, the execution of the original judgment was suspended.
The Paper found that the direct arraignment of the Supreme Court also affected the trial process of many related cases.
For example, on April 1, the Nanjing Intermediate Court of Jiangsu Province had been arraigned by the Supreme Court based on the "Honeysuckle"-related case, and decided to suspend the trial of the appellants Nanjing Sandun Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. The case of Shanghai Bili Cosmetics Co., Ltd.
"The Supreme People's Court's handling of the arraigned case has a substantial impact on the trial of this case. At present, the relevant litigation cases have not been concluded, and the case is ruled to suspend the litigation in accordance with the law," the ruling said.
On June 13, the Sichuan High Court decided to remand the case of Jiangxi Zhangshu Zhengkang Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Co., Ltd. and the respondent Shanghai Bili Cosmetics Co., Ltd. for retrial, and ruled that the execution of the original judgment should be suspended during the retrial.
On June 24 and 30, Guangdong Zhongshan Intermediate People's Court directly commuted the two honeysuckle trademark cases in the second instance, revoked the original first-instance verdict in favor of Bili Company, and commuted the verdict that the accused enterprise did not constitute trademark infringement.
Two cases were reversed in the second instance, lawyer: there is a weather vane significance
The two companies that won the second instance were Jiangxi Chuangmei Industrial Co., Ltd. and Jiangxi Baitai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., which produced "Congmeichen" brand and "Yaoduhu" brand honeysuckle toilet water respectively.
Bili Company filed a lawsuit after purchasing the products involved on the e-commerce platform. In the first instance, both companies were sentenced to pay 60,000 yuan in compensation.
The Zhongshan Intermediate People's Court held that the first paragraph of Article 59 of the "Trademark Law": "The common name, graphics, and model of the product contained in the registered trademark, or directly represent the quality, main raw materials, functions, uses, and weight of the product. In this case, the trademark No. 603857 “Honeysuckle” involved directly represents the main raw materials of the goods and other characteristics, and the trademark owner cannot Exclusive trademarks identify those original meanings that were originally in the public domain.
When the two accused companies used the words "Honeysuckle toilet water" on the accused infringing toilet water products, they also marked their own registered trademarks above the words.
"Honeysuckle" usually refers to the name of a plant, which has the effect of clearing away heat and detoxification, while toilet water is a generic trade name, and the main ingredient of the alleged infringing toilet water is honeysuckle extract.
Under this circumstance, the two companies marked "Honeysuckle toilet water" on the alleged infringing products and did not use them as trademarks of their own products. The use was only to illustrate or describe the characteristics of their products. In the description or description, the two companies did not Directly applying the No. 603857 "Honeysuckle" trademark without prominently using the word "Honeysuckle" is an act of legitimate use of the trademark logo.
Therefore, the wrong judgment of the first instance was revoked in the second instance, and the claim of Bili Company was dismissed.
Gong Dawei, a lawyer for Baitai Company, said that although his argument was accepted by the court, there was actually nothing new.
He has studied more than 80 cases in which Bili Company won cases, in which the defendant's lawyers all made similar arguments, but they were not adopted.
Now, he will hand over the Zhongshan Intermediate Court's favorable judgment as evidence to the Shandong High Court, where he represented another honeysuckle case.
He believes that the Zhongshan Intermediate People's Court's judgment "has a weather vane significance."
Gong Dawei said that during the trial, he made a key statement on the revocation of the honeysuckle trademark in 1995, but the court avoided the issue.
The judgment of the Zhongshan Intermediate People's Court stated that against Baitai Company, "this case should be applied for the suspension of the trial on the basis of the result of another case on whether the trademark involved in the case of Bili Company is valid. After review, there is no need to suspend the case."
The relevant person in charge of Baitai Company said, "We were doing business well, and the sales of 'Huaduhu' honeysuckle toilet water have been relatively good in the market in recent years. Because we were sued by Bili Company for so-called infringement, we had to pay for a lawyer. Responding to the lawsuit, he was forced to recall products from consumers and agents, compensate agents for liquidated damages, and waste a lot of products and packaging, with a total loss of 180,000 yuan."
Peng Mei News noticed that Chuangmei Company also requested Bili Company to compensate 60,000 yuan for the loss of 60,000 yuan in the second instance, but because it was a counterclaim in the second instance, the court did not hear it.
The public judgment documents show that some judgments that Bili Company won in the past have been executed or applied for compulsory execution.
At the same time, since the honeysuckle trademark case was exposed, in some courts, Bili Company applied to the court to withdraw the lawsuit against the newly initiated lawsuit.