Adidas Has Launched The "Stripe Competition" In The World.

"This has a great impact on Chinese clothing brands." in September 28, 2011, Lin Congying, chairman of the Jinjiang textile and Garment Association and chairman of the nine Mu Wang, told reporters on the phone that otherwise, it is not only the three bars, but also the two bars and four bars may be faced with accusations of infringement.

He is aiming at the "three bar" trademark registration final case.

Although it has passed for more than half a year, Lin Congying is in a very excited mood now.

It all started in 2002.

In September 13th of that year, Adidas applied for trademark registration to the Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry and commerce, specifying the use of twenty-fifth categories of clothing, coats and jackets.

"If the trademark is registered successfully, it means that Chinese clothing enterprises can not use three bars in the side of the garment."

Lin Congying said.

Therefore, the trademark (hereinafter referred to as the disputed trademark) was first examined and announced by the Trademark Office, and the Jinjiang textile and Garment Association applied for an objection to the trademark office.

But as a result, the Trademark Office has ruled No. 02320 in April 21, 2008: the trademark is approved for registration.

In May 12, 2008, the Jinjiang textile and Garment Association once again applied to the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce for reexamination. It was said that the disputed trademark contained the general graphics of the designated commodity, which was not significant, and it was easy to cause confusion in the market. Adidas's malicious registration of monopolized market was an act of unfair competition prohibited by law.

Adidas replied to the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board that the outline of the jacket is just for the better display of the position of the three bars, not a part of the trademark, and the three bar is its trademark.

Subsequently, in March 15, 2010, the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board made decision No. 05798: its significance is on three vertical bars, and after a long period of use, it has established a corresponding relationship with Adidas, thus approving registration.

For this interpretation, Jinjiang textile and Garment Association is difficult to understand, so the first intermediate people's Court of Beijing filed a lawsuit.

In May 6, 2010, the court accepted the case and heard it publicly in September 15, 2010.

In court, Adidas reintroduced evidence.

For example: pictures of the seventeenth World Cup; highlights of the Golden Shoe trophy; photographs of the 2002 Asia Pacific finals of the Adidas Street Basketball Challenge; and even the list of countries and regions that Adidas companies were allowed to register in the 70s "three bar graphics".

The Jinjiang textile and Garment Association principal agent, Shanghai Zhi Ding law firm's former lawyer, and Su He Qin, partner of Feng Ze (Shanghai) law office, Kyushu, has defended and presented new evidence, such as proving the certificate of "three bars" used in plum blossom sportswear, the certificate issued by Tianjin knitted sports clothing factory, the product picture of the Chinese clothing enterprises using the "three bars" and "two bars", and the copy of the judgment of the Taipei higher administrative court.

In fact, the China clothing association also issued a certificate in June 24, 2010. The style design of a pole, two bars, three bars and five bars on the side of top sleeves and trousers is the clothing adornment commonly used by Chinese clothing enterprises, and it is a common pattern of sportswear in the Chinese market.

In the face of all kinds of evidence, the court finds that according to the law, the disputed trademark is a common flat trademark, not a three-dimensional trademark, and its use should reflect the entire trademark pattern.

At the same time, Adidas did not take the disputed trademark as a logo pattern, attached it to the market and did not advertise it, so it could not prove its significance after being used.

As for Adidas, the use of three bars is only a dress style or decoration, or involves other trademarks, and the appearance of some patterns in trademarks is not equivalent to the use of trademarks.

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The court decided to remove the Trademark Review Board No. 05798 and reorder it.

Finally came to an end.

China's victory

However, things are not over.

The Trademark Review and Adjudication Board and Adidas refused to accept the first instance judgment and appealed the Jinjiang textile and clothing association to the Beijing Higher People's court.

In February 10, 2011, the Beijing Higher People's court accepted the case and held a public hearing in March 15th.

In court, Adidas still said that the objection trademark is a visual sense of location trademark. In actual use, its location is striking, striking and significant, and is widely used in conjunction with other trademarks.

For this reason, Adidas has put forward new evidence that the case is applied for trademark registration by dissenting trademark, Trademark No. 3307038th and a trademark on shoes and other commodities.

The evidence shows that the application for trademark registration of the disputed trademark in the "trademark design instruction" has already indicated that "the above trademark is the background, consisting of three bars. The outline of the jacket is only a better indication of the three bar shapes in the future. The outline of the coat is not part of the application for trademark".

However, the high court of Beijing rejected this claim and considered it not a three-dimensional trademark.

According to the thirteenth provision of the implementing regulations of the People's Republic of China, "applying for a registered trademark with a three-dimensional sign shall be declared in the application and submitted to a three-dimensional shape.

Where a trademark is applied for registration of a registered trademark, it shall be declared in the application and submitted with a written explanation. "

At the same time, according to the thirteenth provision of the trademark law, the trademark logo shall be based on the trademark plan submitted to the trademark office. The trademark design explanation is not the statutory basis for determining the trademark logo, and it can not replace or limit the commercial logo in the trademark pattern with the trademark design instruction.

As a result, the high court of Beijing held that the disputed trademark belonged to the graphic trademark, and the original judgment was not inappropriate for the identification of the ordinary trademark of the disputed trademark.

Is the disputed trademark as a whole, is it significant?

The high court of Beijing held that the disputed trademark was composed of a jacket pattern and three parallel bars, which lacked distinctive features.

Obviously, according to the trademark law, trademarks that lack significant characteristics can not be registered.

In the courtroom, Adidas also brought out the killer. They brought the trademark information of international registration G948935, G87666l and G730835 trademarks. Among them, the G948935 trademark was basically the same as the disputed trademark and was approved for use in the twenty-fifth category of clothing products.

The Beijing High Court held that trademark registration should follow the principle of case review on the basis of relevant facts of the case, and other trademark registration does not determine whether the disputed trademark can be registered.

In fact, the first paragraph of article forty-first of the trademark law stipulates that "a registered trademark has violated the provisions of tenth, eleventh or twelfth of this note, or has obtained registration by deception or other improper means. The Trademark Office shall cancel the registered trademark, and the unit or individual may request the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board to adjudication to cancel the registered trademark."

Therefore, the court held that although the relevant trademarks were registered abroad, they could not be considered to be significant and should be registered.

At the same time, the trademark committee also pointed out that through the long-term sponsorship sports events, Adidas insisted on the use of the "three bars" trademark on most of its products, and established a strong corresponding relationship between producers and producers in the consumers.

However, the high court of Beijing held that Adidas did not use disputed trademarks, but only three vertical bars.

Only using some elements can not be equal to the use of trademarks.

Therefore, the disputed trademark logo lacks significant features, and it can not be proved to have significant characteristics after being used.

Finally, the Beijing high court dismissed the trademark review board and Adidas appeals to maintain the original judgment.

Adidas's striped hegemony

In fact, as a style, the three bar has been used by many international brands.

It is also true that Adidas has already started the world's counterattack.

And their ambition is not limited to three bars.

At the end of the 90s, Adidas filed a lawsuit against a court in Holland, claiming that the two stripes used by C&A, H&M, MarcaMode and Vendex, the four largest international apparel traders, violated their trademark rights and interests.

However, the Holland court did not immediately decide.

But soon Adidas had a turning point.

In 2003, Adidas fought against FitnessWorldTrading, and the European Court supported Adidas.

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Adidas, which saw the hope, appealed to the European Court of justice the four international brands in 2007.

This time, Adidas was supported again. Adidas's three bar global hegemony extended to two bars and four bars.

In fact, since its inception, Adidas has begun to look for its global hegemony by coercing the "stripes".

As early as 1970s, the German court had decided that any two, three, or four stripes were designed to infringe the trademark of Adidas's "three bars".

It was this case that made Nike spokesman Konlos "disappointed."

In 2005, because a pair of shorts used two stripes, Adidas introduced Nike to the German court.

Finally, the German court ordered Nike to stop selling the shorts and fined 1 million euros.

In the same period, TomTailor, a German garment manufacturer, was fined 500 thousand euros for a jacket using two bars.

Michael Rosenblatt, CEO of TomTailor, will undoubtedly restrict the space of costume design.

Subsequently, Adidas turned its attention to the market outside Germany.

In 2005, Adidas accused the US Polo Association designer Ralph Lauren and Abe kleby and Fei Chi company in the United States.

In 2007, Adidas sued ABERCROMBIE&FITCH company.

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Adidas's actions have been opposed by worldwide brands.

"This stripe design element should not be the private property of a company," said Ursula Hudson, a well-known designer in London. Otherwise, it will limit the designer's creative inspiration and attack the whole design industry.

In fact, in the opening ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympic Games, Nike, Puma, Reebok and Pentland complained to the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne, Switzerland, against the privileges of Adidas in the Olympic Games.

One reason is that trademarks should not exceed 20 square centimeters.

But over the past 40 years, there are no restrictions on the three bars of Adidas's Olympic athletes' costumes.

Later, the Olympic Committee requested that the area of Adidas's three bars should not exceed 20 square centimeters.

Reasonable protection

In fact, intellectual property protection, in the end, is the protection of interests.

"In the TRIPs agreement, many of the provisions are essentially unequal and the developed countries impose their own interests on the members of the developing countries."

Professor Li Shunde, deputy director of the intellectual property center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and vice president of the China Law Society's Intellectual Property Law Research Association, once said so.

Obviously, in China, intellectual property is an imported product. After joining the WTO, great progress has been made.

That is why many voices have stressed that Chinese enterprises should strengthen their awareness of intellectual property rights and put the boards on enterprises.

For example, in 2003, the market newspaper published an article that Adidas's "three bars" sign was obvious and could be registered as a trademark.

This shows that China's intellectual property protection has a long way to go.

Obviously, this requires coordination between the government and the judiciary, otherwise the protection of intellectual property rights will be staggering.

An example is the trademark infringement case of Nike ski jacket, which was encountered by Zhejiang Jiaxing Yin Xing garment factory.

At that time, Zhejiang Jiaxing Yin Xing garment factory was commissioned by the Spanish brand CIDESPORT to manufacture products.

However, the product was detained by the Shenzhen customs when it was sent to Spain.

Subsequently, the Jiaxing silver garment factory and CIDESPORT were infringed by the Shenzhen intermediate people's court's trademark of Nike.

In fact, as early as 1932, NIKE trademark was registered in Spain, which is a legal trademark.

That is to say, there are two NIKE in the world, but they are all legal, but the NIKE owned by CIDESPORT is only protected in Spain.

However, the Shenzhen intermediate people's court held that although CIDESPORT has the right to use NIKE trademark in Spain, trademark rights have regional characteristics. Therefore, in China without Nike's license, other companies can not infringe their trademark exclusive rights in any way.

But the problem is that at the same time, another batch of Chinese CIDESPORT producing garments with "NIKE" brand went smoothly through Holland customs and entered Spain.

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The reason for the Holland court is that it is a pit product and the product can be legally sold in Spain, and all CIDESPORT companies are not malicious.

Nike lost in Holland but won in China.

This has caused the shock of China's intellectual property circles, the whole legal profession and even the relevant fields of the world. Experts at the seminar on intellectual property rights held by "reading" magazine have been wary of the excessive protection of intellectual property rights in China.

Thus, in February 18, 2004, the Beijing High Court wrote in the answers to several questions concerning the trial of Trademark Civil Disputes, "the processing of licensed products is based on the explicit authorization of the person who has the right to use the trademark, and the goods processed by the authorized processing are not sold in China, which can not cause confusion or misidentification of the relevant public, and should not be deemed to constitute infringement."

"The government, the judiciary and the trade associations are the three pillars of intellectual property protection. These three forces complement each other and complement each other."

Liao Junming, senior member of China Intellectual Property Research Association.

In fact, the association has become an important force on behalf of enterprises.

This time, the Jinjiang clothing association sued Adidas for an obvious example.

In fact, a number of brand enterprises in Jinjiang, such as Anta, noble bird, nine Mu Wang and del Hui, have long started collective action.

Obviously, the way of safeguarding the rights of domestic enterprises has developed from single to single industry alliance and Trade Association.

"Association's collective rights protection will be adopted by more and more enterprises, and the association will also play an important role in protecting intellectual property rights."

Some experts say so.

To this end, the Jinjiang industry and Commerce Bureau regularly visits and investigates the production and operation of the member units, collecting information on infringement of famous enterprises, and formulating a network management method of jointly protecting counterfeiting and protecting rights between Jinjiang industrial and commercial bureau and famous and excellent enterprises.

The China Textile Industry Association has also formulated an outline for the development of intellectual property rights.

In December 2010, the China clothing association held a special work conference on safeguarding rights. The leaders and representatives of enterprises and legal advisers from the SAIC discussed the issues of rights protection, such as brand name, counterfeiting and counterfeiting, from the aspects of legislation, law enforcement and enterprise management. The communication mechanism of intellectual property protection between China clothing association and brand enterprises began to run.

This is a good start.