For many post-80s and post-90s generation, it's certainly not strange. In 2008, an advertisement of "you are my Youlemei" by President Zhou was popular all over the country, so Youlemei milk tea also entered the public's vision.

Although it has been decades since the advertisement came out, Youlemei milk tea is still the first choice of consumers.

01

Twists and turns, the infringement dispute of "Youlemei" trademark

However, speaking of Youlemei milk tea, we have to mention the Xizhilang group behind it. Recently, according to information, the Beijing Court published the administrative judgment of the second instance of Guangdong Xizhilang group, and it was a dispute about the infringement of the Youlemei trademark.

In March, 2009, Shenzhen Yunlian Digital Entertainment Electronics Co., Ltd. applied for the registration of the trademark "Youlemei and Tu", which was approved for use in category 9, and was approved for registration on November 7, 2010.

Until April 2020, Xizhilang company filed a request for invalidation of the "Youlemei" trademark of Yunlian company, which believed that the trademark in dispute was a malicious imitation and plagiarism of its previous trademark. However, the intellectual property office did not support it on the ground that "the limitation of action has exceeded five years and has not been protected by well-known trademarks". Therefore, Xizhilang Group continued to file a lawsuit to the Beijing Intellectual Property Court.

After the trial, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court still rejected Xizhilang's claim for three reasons:

First of all, the court held that the "Youlemei" trademark of Yunlian company was approved to be registered on November 7, 2010, but Xizhilang company filed a request for invalidation only in 2020, and the time limit has exceeded five years. Therefore, the claim that the contested trademark is a malicious imitation and reproduction of its previous works cannot be established.

Secondly, Xizhilang claims that the well-known trademark No. 6091459 "Youlemei; u.loveit" has not been approved for registration before the application date of the contested trademark, so the conclusion that the contested trademark violates the provisions of the trademark law is not tenable.

Finally, the existing evidence is insufficient to prove that Yunlian company has disturbed the order of trademark registration or damaged the social and public interests.

Finally, the court made a final judgment, rejected the appeal request of Xizhilang company and upheld the original judgment.

02

As an enterprise, is it enough to register a trademark in advance?

According to public information inquiry, Xizhilang company registered the trademark of "Youlemei" as early as 2000, but it did not improve the trademark layout in time for a long time after that. It did not register the trademark of "Youlemei u.loveit" of multiple categories until February 24, 2010. Before that, other enterprises or individuals have registered multiple categories of "Youlemei" trademarks, which is one of the reasons for the failure of this invalidation.

As an enterprise, the registered trademark should not only cover the existing business scope, but also take into account the future development direction and industry prospect prediction; Secondly, it is suggested that when registering trademarks, it is best to extend them to confusing commodity categories, so as to avoid other businesses' justifiable "near famous brands", but you have nothing to do; Finally, if the conditions of the enterprise allow, we can consider adopting full category registration protection for the core trademarks of the enterprise, so that no matter how much trouble it has, it can be easily avoided.

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