CPA Successfully Represents US Client in Retrial of Administrative Trademark Case before Supreme People's Court

Recently, China Patent Agent (H.K.) Ltd. (CPA) successfully represented its US client before the Supreme People's Court of China (SPC) in the retrial of an administrative trademark case, although the first instance and second instance of the case, handled by another intellectual property (IP) firm, failed to get the support of the courts.

 

The trademark in dispute was applied for registration by the applicant in name A on 14 December 2010, but the application was rejected by the Trademark Office, which cited a trademark similar to the applied mark and registered by the applicant itself on 23 August 2000 in fictitious business name B.

 

The applicant brought an administrative action before the First Intermediate People's Court of Beijing to appeal the rejection decision, while concurrently filing an application to the Trademark Office for change of the name of the registrant in respect of the cited mark. Although the name of the registrant of the cited mark had been consisted with that of the applied mark during the second-instance proceeding of the case, the court of the second instance upheld the original rejection ruling because the former IP agent neglected to submit evidence in support of the name change to the court.

 

After the second-instance judgment, the applicant transferred the case to our firm. Upon the entrustment our firm filed a retrial application with SPC on behalf of the client. During the retrial proceeding, our attorneys carefully sorted out the facts of the case and stressed to the court in particular that despite the former IP agent's oversight in submitting the required evidence, the name of the registrant of the cited mark and that of the applied mark in the case had been consisted and that such information had been published by the Trademark Office by the time of the second-instance proceeding. Our attorneys also advocated the application of the principle of changed circumstances to the case.

 

In the retrial judgment, SPC recognised the fact that the name of the applied mark and the cited mark had been consisted prior to the second-instance judgment, revoked the appealed decision as well as the first and second-instance judgments based on the principle of changed circumstances, and ruled that a renewed ruling of the case should be conducted.