2016 Chronicle of IP Cases in China

By Bob Meng and Bess Xiang, China IP,[Comprehensive Reports]

  Case 1 : Fei Cheng Wu Rao trademark case
  Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court adjudged on December 11, 2015 that Jiangsu Broadcasting Corporation (JSBC) immediately cease its infringement of the No.7199523 registered trademark, Fei Cheng Wu Rao, owned by Jin A'huan. The channel of Jiangsu TV (JSTV) as under JSBC shall, upon the adjudgement, immediately cease to use Fei Cheng Wu Rao as the name of its program. JSBC announced to the public on January 15 that Fei Cheng Wu Rao, the program, is altered to Yuan Lai Fei Cheng Wu Rao. And on May 26, JSBC announced again that the widely-known Fei Cheng Wu Rao trademark infringement case would be retried by the Higher People's Court of Guangdongand that the original adjudgement would be suspended during the retrial. The Court retried the case on November 15. During the retrial, the dispute was still over whether the services provided by both sides were the same. JSTV argued that Fei Cheng Wu Rao, the program, was an entertainment TV program about broadcast service, and accordingly, cannot be confused with the matchmaking service claimed by Jin A'huan. The attorney agent of Jin A'huan, however, argued that the TV program and the Internet were just forms of service, but matchmaking was the essence. Jin A'huan did not claim any civil damages, but required JSTV cease to use the name of Fei Cheng Wu Rao. Both sides refused mediation. On December 30, 2016, HPCG made a public adjudgement as to the retrial of Fei Cheng Wu Rao trademark infringement case that JSTV did not infringe the trademark in question because the trademark was used for different categories of service without confusing the public. That is to say, the program, Fei Cheng Wu Rao, can be restored.
  Case 2: Final judgement of the Weixin trademark case: Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (TRAB) did not approve the registration and maintained its original adjudication
  On April 20, 2016, the Higher People's Court of Beijing made a public judgement to the retrial of the administrative dispute over the Weixin trademark between the appellant, Chuangbo Asia-Pacific Tech (Shandong) Co., Ltd. (Chuangbo Asia-Pacific), the appellee, TRAB of State Administration for Industry & Commerce, and the third side of the first trial, Zhang Xinhe. The Court adjudged that, although the application and the registration of the Weixin trademark did not violate Clause 8, Paragraph 1, Article 10 of Trademark Law, the trademark shall not be approved and registered in accordance with the law, because its specified service was in a lack of distinctive features, and accordingly, its application for registration violated Clause 2, Paragraph 1, Article 11 therein. TRAB's adjudication, though improper, was correct. Parts of Chuangbo Asia-Pacific's grounds of appeal were acceptable, but the appeal was not so. So the final judgement rejected the appeal and maintained the original adjudication. The Court pointed out in the final judgement that, as "other unwholesome influences" was absolutely prohibited with regard to the registration of a trademark, a mark, when believed to have "other unwholesome influences", shall not be used as a trademark for all categories of goods and services, much less registered. Therefore, one shall be very prudent and careful in judging whether a mark has these influences. In this case, the trademark in dispute was composed of two Chinese words, Wei and Xin. The existing evidences were not enough to prove that the trademark or any of its elements has negative and adverse influences on public benefits and order with respect to politics, economy, culture, theology, ethnic groups of China. For this reason, it is not proper to hold that the trademark itself or any of its elements has "other unwholesome influences".
  Case 3: Supreme People's Court retried the serial cases of administrative dispute over the trademark of Qiao Dan
  On April 26, 2016, Supreme People's Court (SPC) set up a fivemember collegiate panel led by Chief Judge Tao Kaiyuan, deputy president of SPC, to retry 10 serial cases of Michael Jeffrey Jordan v. TRAB of State Administration for Industry & Commerce and the third side of the original trial, Qiaodan Sports Co., Ltd. (Qiaodan Sports), with regard to the administrative dispute over a trademark. On December 8, SPC made a public judgement to these 10 cases of Michael Jeffrey Jordan v. TRAB of State Administration for Industry & Commerce and the third side of the original trial, Qiaodan Sports Co., Ltd. As the judgement goes, Michael Jeffrey Jordan had the right of name to Qiao Dan, the Chinese words, but not to QIAODAN or qiaodan. In these 10 cases, SPC determined in accordance with laws about the scope of the name to which the retrial applicant claimed the right of name. In the three cases involving Qiao Dan, SPC clarified the standards and conditions on which the right of name can be claimed and, in accordance with laws, held that the registration of the trademark in dispute infringed the retrial applicant's earlier right of name to Qiao Dan. However, as Qiaodan Sports has obvious subjective malice in the registration of the trademark in dispute, the operations of Qiaodan Sports and its use and publicity of its name and trademark were not enough to validate its registration of the trademark in dispute, and so three trademarks bearing Qiao Dan shall be cancelled and TRAB was ordered to re-adjudicate the case. In the other 7 cases, the Court held in accordance with laws that the retrial applicant had no right of name to QIAODAN and qiaodan and, accordingly, denied the retrial application.
  Case 4: Apple failed in the suit with regard to its trademark, IPHONE
  Xintong Tiandi Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. (Xintong Tiandi) obtained the Class XVIII right of trademark of IPHONE. The Higher People's Court of Beijing pointed out that, in a retrial case of administrative dispute over a trademark, whether the trademark referenced was wellknown should be subject to the status of the trademark in dispute before the date when it is applied for, and in consideration of the public's awareness of that trademark, the time the trademark has been used for, the time, extent and geographical range that the trademark had been publicized for, and the records that the trademark was protected as a well-known trademark. In this case, the trademark in dispute was applied for on September 29, 2007, but Apple's evidences to IPHONE were formed after that date. And according to Apple's statement, the trademark in dispute was created in June 2007 and the products bearing that trademark were first sold in China in October 2009. Therefore, Apple's evidences were not enough to prove that "IPHONE" had been already well-known before the trademark in dispute was applied for. Accordingly, the application and the registration of the trademark in dispute was lawful.
  Case 5: Canxing was required judicially to cease the use of the program name-The Voice of China
  On June 20, 2016, on the request of Zhejiang Talent Television & Film Co., Ltd. (Talent), Beijing Intellectual Property Court made an adjudication of injunction, ruling that Shanghai Canxing Culture& Broadcast Co., Ltd. (Canxing) immediately cease to use any program name or registered trademark including the words of "Zhong Guo Hao Sheng Yin" and "the Voice of China" during the publicity, promotion, open audition, advertisement and business introduction, and program production of reality pop programs, and Century Li Liang (Beijing) International Culture Media Co., Ltd. immediately cease to use any program name or registered trademark including the words of "Zhong Guo Hao Sheng Yin"during the publicity, promotion, open audition, advertisement and business introduction, and program production of reality pop programs. By examination and investigation, the Court held that the program, The Voice of China 2016, produced by Canxing started campus audition and launched a trailer release in Beijing, but Talent's request included the claim that the logo used in the campus audition and the trailer release infringed its unregistered well-known trademark. And The Voice of China was so well-known that the case would cause significant influences. Therefore, the Court was competent for this case.
  Case 6: The 10-year dispute over Caidie was settled
  On July 2016, after 4 years of setbacks, the case that Zhongshan Caidie Food Co., Ltd. (Zhongshan Caidie) sued three companies including Anhui Caidie Bakery Co., Ltd. (Caidie Group) for trademark infringement and unfair competition was finally concluded. The retrial judgement of the Supreme People's Court cancelled the civil judgements of the first and second trials and demanded Caidie Group to cease the infringement and publish statements on newspapers to eliminate negative influences. However, the Court did not support Zhongshan Caidie's claim regarding unfair competition. The Court held that the original judgement was basically clear in respect of facts, but it applied a wrong law. The Court indicated that those three companies in Hefei used a logo that was equal to or similar with the registered trademark in question in the infringing products they produced and sold and the services they provided. And that was an infringement of the exclusive right of the registered trademark in question. The appellee, accordingly, shall be civilly responsible, as in accordance with the law. The Court held that whether the registration of Caidie as a trademark constitutes unfair competition depends on whether there is an intention to use the trademark in question when the company name was registered. For this purpose, it should be considered whether the trademark in question was well-known when the company name was registered. The Court cancelled the civil judgements of the first and second trials and demanded Caidie Bakery Group Co., Caidie Services Co., Ltd., and Berry Sweet Co., Ltd. immediately cease the infringement of Zhongshan Caidie's exclusive right of related registered trademark and publish statements on newspaper to eliminate negative influences. Furthermore those three Anhui companies shall pay Liang Huo and Lu Yijian 544,511 yuan for compensation.
  Case 7: Rejected objection to the jurisdiction of the first case of Internet finance trademark Beijing Intellectual Property Court disclosed to the public that it has rejected the objection of three defendants to the jurisdiction of the case of the plaintiff,Beijing Qihoo Technology Co. v. the defendants, Beijing Lianhe Zhongtou Finance Information Co., Ltd., Yunnan Daidai Internet Finance Service Co., Ltd., and Yunnan Daidai Internet Information Technology Co., Ltd.for trademark right infringement. It was said that this case was the first one of a well known trademark in the field of Internet finance. The Court held that the grounds of objection proposed by the litigant was related to trademark infringement, as well as many kinds of disputes over the jurisdiction in the proceedings of Internet domain dispute cases, including the priority of the qualification and jurisdiction determination of a subject, applicable conditions for determining jurisdiction as per the location of the devices like computer terminals that are used to identify the domain, civil disputes over domain and jurisdiction competent for well known trademarks, and jurisdiction to conclude an intellectual property case, etc.
  Case 8: A trademark dispute case where Toutiao won the first trial
  Beijing Byte Dance Technology Co., Ltd. (Byte Dance) sued to the court requesting the cancellation of the adjudication by TRAB that rejected four trademarks including Toutiaoand its image due to a lack of dist inctive characteristics. After trial, Beijing Intellectual Property Court held that Byte Dance's trademark in question had been widely used on Internet news and information services, and the public had already recognize the logo in question as a trademark. The court cancelled the adjudication that rejected four trademarks including Toutiao and its image by TRAB and demanded that it be re-adjudicated.
  Case 9: Beijing Daoxiangcun sued Suzhou Daoxiangcun for confusing trademark
  The dispute over the Daoxiangcun trademark two years ago was concluded with Beijing Daoxiangcun winning. The latter, however, held an emergency press conference in Beijing, saying that Suzhou Daoxiangcun still infringe its right. Beijing Daoxiangcun has sued Suzhou Daoxiangcun for four times. Except a claim for about 40 million yuan, it also required Suzhou Daoxiangcun to add two words, "Su Zhou", to its nameplates. This was closely fol lowed by Suzhou Daoxiangcun's emergency press conference in Beijing, where Suzhou Daoxiangcun said again that Daoxiangcun Group was the only one holder of the Daoxiangcun trademark for cakes and foodstuff and announced that it will apply for overall invalidation of Beijing Daoxiangcun's trademark.
  Case 10 : Facebook won a trademark right case in China
  Higher People's Court of Beijing made a retrial judgement and maintained the adjudication of the first trial to cancel Zhongshan Zhujiang Beverage Factory's right to the trademark, "face book" that was registered in 2011. The holder of "FACEBOOK", Facebook Inc. won the case. It was reported that the marketing general manager of the beverage factory, Liu Hongqun applied for "face book" to the Trademark Office of The State Administration for Industry & Commercein January 2011. The trademark was defined to vegetable cans, potato chips and some beverages. In April 2014, TRAB approved the registration, but Facebook Inc. filed an administrative suit. The court of the first trial held that the adjudication made by TRAB was not enough evidenced and required TRAB to re-adjudicate the case. Liu Hongqun, therefore, refused to accept the adjudication. And the Court maintained the first trial adjudication in the retrial.
  Case 11: U.S. New Balance was sued for infringement in China
  The Higher People's Court of Guangdong adjudged in June 23 that New Balance, an America sneaker manufacturer, failed the case of "Xin Bai Lun" trademark infringement and, accordingly pay 5 million yuan to Zhou Lelun, a Chinese mainland citizen as compensation and publish statements on websites. The court also ordered that New Balance publish statements on the home pages of New Balance (China) official website, New Balance flagship store, and New Balance children shoes flagship store to eleminate negative influence. It was known that New Balance was very disappointed to that and considered whether to appeal further. As its speaker said, the adjudication was "particularly significant because it was contrary to the developed world's understanding of intellectual property, and this case would be a bad precedent."The suitor was Zhou Lelun, who was then producing and selling shoes and hats in Guangdong. He applied for the trademark, "Xin Bai Lun" in June 2004, which was approved in January 2008.
  Case 12: Both sides of the "Yema"trademark case exchanged evidences before the court
  In February 2016, Sichuan Yema Automobile Co., Ltd. sued "Mustang" of Ford China Co., Ltd. and Sichuan Pioneer Motors Co., Ltd. for trademark infringement and demanded 10 million yuan as compensation. In July 1, both sides exchanged evidences in Chengdu Intermediate People's Court and produced and cross examined adminicular evidence. The defendant, Ford China, alleged that it had been granted the right to a series of trademarks of US Ford Motor Company and registered "Ford", "Mustang", and "Ford Mustang" for Category 12 products. It was reported that, after the second evidence exchange before the court, the judge tended to open a court session as soon as possible.
  Case 13: Great Wall Motor sued TRAB for rejecting its trademark, "Ha Fu", similar with the Chinese words for "Harvard"
  Beijing Intellectual Property Court accepted a case that Great Wall Motor Company Limited sued TRAB for rejecting its trademark due to similarity with "Harvard". The plaintiff, Great Wall Motor, claimed that its trademark, "Ha Fu" on Category 35 advertisement services was rejected by TRAB. Great Wall Motor refused to accept it and applied for retrial to TRAB. But TRAB held that the trademark in question was similar with the Chinese words for "Harvard", the well-known university of the U.S. and thus easy to confuse consumers. Also, a trademark that was similar with the referenced trademark, when used on also the same or similar advertisement service, was easy to cause consumers confused with the source of such service. And that constitute a similar trademark on the same or similar service. Therefore, TRAB decided to reject the trademark in question.
  Case 1: Huawei sued Samsung for patent infringement in both China and the U.S.
  On May 25, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei) filed intellectual property suits against Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court, China. In the case, Huawei demanded Samsung to compensate Huawei for the infringement of its intellectual property, including a high-value patent involving communication technology and the software used in Samsung's cellphones. Huawei demanded in the suit that Samsung should compensate Huawei for the infringement of its intellectual property, including a high-value patent involving communication technology and the software used in Samsung's cellphones. Huawei believed that, as a holder of necessary patents of major mobile communications standards, Huawei was dedicated to patent permission on the basis of fairness, reasonability and nondiscrimination, but it has the right to demand reasonable compensation from those companies that use Huawei's technologies without permission.
  Case 2: Qualcomm sued Meizu and claimed an indemnity of 520 million but now they were reconciled
  On June 24, Qualcomm officially sued Meizu (Zhuhai Meizu Technology Co., Ltd. and its Beijing branch) to Beijing Intellectual Property Court and made three requests, including the request that the court adjudge Qualcomm's conditions of patent license to Meizu consistent with Anti-monopoly Law of the People's Republic of China and the obligation of Qualcomm's permission to be fair, reasonable and non-discriminate; the request that the court adjudge Qualcomm's conditions of patent license to Meizu constitute the foundation of agreement about patent permission aiming at mobile terminal that carried out Qualcomm China's basic patents. In December, Qualcomm and Meizu officially announced that both of them reached a patent license agreement on the basis of fair negotiation. Pursuant to the agreement, Qualcomm awarded Meizu the paid patent license to develop, manufacture and sell CDMA2000, WCDMA and 4G LTE (including three modes, GSM, TDSCDMA and LTE-TDD) terminals in the world. The patent fee Meizu should pay in China was equal to that set out in the rectification measures Qualcomm submitted to National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of the People's Republic of China. The agreement dealt with all patent disputes between Qualcomm and Meizu in China, Germany, France and the U.S. Qualcomm and Meizu had already agreed to take proper measures to terminate or cancel the patent infringement case and those cases validating the related patents, or other related cases.
  Case 3: The patents of Landrover and Landwind X7 were invalidated
  State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), the Chinese patent office, made an announcement with regard to the case that Jaguar Land Rover sued Landwind X7 for infringe the shape of Evoque, another Land Rover model. The patent of Landwind X7 was so invalidated. But, meanwhile, SIPO announced further that the patent of Evoque was also invalid. As indicated by the announcement, the reason why the patent of Landwind X7 was cancelled was that, although Evoque was different with Landwind in detailed design, the two was basically equal in 3D car shape and design style, including suspended ceiling, body scale, waist line etc. Therefore, the two was not different in general visual effects, which was not consistent with Paragraph 2, Article 23 of Patent Law. As for the invalidation of Evoque patent, SIPO proposed many evidence, for example, the patent registered before Evoque was not consistent with Paragraph 2, Article 23 of Patent Law due to the difference between five-door and three-door versions (Paragraph 2, Article 23 of Patent Law requires that an appearance design is distinctively different).
  Case 4: Sogou's sue for infringement developed recently: eight patents were basically invalidated
  On October 28, Baidu alleged that Sogou Pinyin Input Method and Sogou Phone Input Method were infringing up to ten invention patents of Baidu Inpu t and demanded Sogou to pay it 100 million yuan as compensation. Baidu had already filed a suit to Beijing Intellectual Property Court. After this, Sogou officially responded that it had sued Baidu for infringing its 17 patents in 2015. Upon the judgement of Patent Re-examination Board of SIPO, among 17 patents sued by Sogou, there were 8 that were invalidated or partially invalidated, though 3 were not yet adjudicated. This means that those patents were not patentable, because they fell into or partially fell into existing technologies.
  Case 5: iPhone 6/Plus was adjudicated to be infringement and Apple sued Beijing Intellectual Property
  On December 7 , Beijing Intellectual Property Court publicly opened a court session for the administrative dispute case of Apple v. BIP for patent infringement. Apple and Zoomflight did not accept the court's Decision on Patent Infringement Dispute (Jing Zhi Zhi Zi (2016) No. 854-16) and, pursuant to Administrative Litigation Law, sued to the court and requested the cancellation of the decision in question and the announcement that iPhone 6 and iPhone6 Plus did not infringe the ZL201430009113.9 patent. During the session, the collegiate panel carefully heard eight major disputes, such as whether the the Beijing Intellectual Property violated legal procedure and acted beyond its jurisdiction to add Apple Shanghai as a joint requester and demand a country-wide cease of infringement, whether the defendant was wrong to make that adjudication and wrong laws were applied, whether the decision in question was right to deem the patent in question similar with the charged infringing product. The plaintiff, Apple Inc. and Zoomflight and the defendant, Beijing Intellectual Property, and the third side, Baili Company debated fiercely upon those disputes.
  Case 6: The first case of applying for the invalidation of a GUI appearance patent was publicly heard
  On October 28, Patent Reexamination Board of SIPO will publicly hear the first case of Jiangmin Tech & Qihoo 360 applying for the invalidation of a GUI appearance patent. To improve the transparency of the hearing, make information public, communicate the concept and standards of patent cases to the public, and ensure the fairness and accuracy of results, and make the hearing quality harmony with the execution of hearing standards, the Patent Re-examination Board listed the first case of applying for the invalidation of a GUI appearance patent as the third one of publiclyheard key cases and made public the case hearing to the society.
  Case 1: The case that Qi Ji Shen Hua was sued for plagiarizing QiJi MU was concluded
  It was known from the People's Court of Pudong New Area, Shanghai that the plaintiff of this case was Shanghai Zhuang You Information Technology Co., LTD. (Zhuang You), the exclusive operator of QiJi MU in China's mainland, and the defendant was Guang Zhou Hugenstar Information Technology Co., Ltd. (Hugenstar), the developer, and Guangzhou Weedong Network TechnologyCo., Ltd. (Weedong), the exclusive operator, of the web game, Qi Ji Shen Hua. The Court adjudged in the first trial that Qi Ji Shen Hua was a plagiary of QiJi MU, and that the defendants shall immediately cease the infringement and pay the plaintiff 5 million yuan as compensation and approx. 100 thousand yuan for reasonable expense incurred by the plaintiff for the legal proceeding and shall publish a statement on newspapers to eliminate negative influences on the plaintiff. The court held that QiJi Mu was widely-known and much earlier than Qi Ji Shen Huain terms of the release time. But the defendants still developed and operated an online game that was materially similar with QiJi MU and shared the benefits. They infringed the plaintiff's right of reproduction and right to communicate works to the public over information networks. The Court' s first identification of online role-playing games with movie-like works and definition and protection of the lawful rights and interest they possessed as an organized whole, and its final judgement that the defendants shall overall cease the infringement, were greatly awing and frightening those potential infringers.
  Case 2 : 10,000 cases of infringement and complaints on WeChat in the first quarter this year
  It is indicated by Tencent's data that WeChat has received about 10,000 complaints of the infringement of articles on public accounts in the first quarter of 2016, among which the number of cases regarding copyrights ranks first, accounting for 50%. Most of the complaints were against plagiarism. Complaints regarding movie and TV programs also increased significantly. For these cases, WeChat released, in February 2015, Notice on Rules of Punishments for Plagiarism, ruling that 5 plagiarisms will cause an account permanently banned.
  Case 3: A court session was opened for the case that Wind sued Hithink for infringement
  On September 5, Shanghai Win d I n formation Co. , L t d . (Shanghai Wind) sued Hithink Flush Information Network Co., Ltd. (Hithink) for infringement of its copyright. The first trial was in Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People's Court. The case, after 10 times of preparing sessions for almost four years, finally proceeded to the first trial. It was also called "the No.1 case of securities and finance information intellectual property of China". Shanghai Wind asked Hithink to pay 500 million yuan as compensation and another 2.4 million yuan for collecting evidence of unfair competition and infringement. After that, Shanghai Wind applied for alternation of its claims and reduced the compensation to 200 million yuan after a suspension. That was because Shanghai Wind extended the evidence time to 2016, but after the suspension, it changed the time to 2012.
  Case 1: The Supreme People's Court released the top ten intellectual property cases of Chinese courts in 2015
  On April 21, the Supreme People's Court, in consideration of intellectual property case in 2015 resorted to it, selected the top ten intellectual property cases in 2015 of Chinese courts from the recommendations of higher people's courts of provinces: (1) confirmation of non-infringement of Honda Auto's appearance design patent and compensation for damages; (2) infringement of the appearance design patent of hand-held shower nozzle; (3) An e-commerce platform bears joint and several liability for its infringement of a patent; (4) Star River Group's infringement of trademark rights and unfair competition case; (5) Non-infringement due to earlier use of "Sailing Education Group"; (6) Trademark license contract of Bi Jia Suo; (7) Qiong Yao v. Yu Zheng; (8) Interlocutory injunction involving the online game, World of Warcraft; (9) Administrative dispute over the invention patent of atorvastatin; (10) The case of a counterfeit seasoning trademark.
  Case 2: Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) released the top ten typical cases of procuratorates' protection of intellectual property in 2015
  On May 5, Supreme People's Procuratorate released the top ten typical cases of procuratorates' protection of intellectual property in 2015, including many kinds of intellectual property cases, such as infringement of business secrets and copyright, forged registered trademark, dispute over trademark use, and infringement of invention patents. It was indicated by SPP's statistics that 4,445 involved in 2,615 cases of infringement of intellectual property were arrested under the approval of procuratorates across China and 8,025 involved in 4,484 cases were sued by procuratorates, indicating intensifying fight against the infringement of intellectual property.
  Case 3: General Administration of Customs released the typical cases of the protection of intellectual property in 2015
  On April 26, General Administration of Customs (GAC) released Chinese Customs' Protection of Intellectual Property in 2015 and The Typical Cases of Chinese Customs' Protection of Intellectual Property in 2015. It is shown by statistics that Chinese customs have taken measures to protect intellectual property by more than 25 thousand times and have seized more than 23 thousand batches of infringing suspected cargo, involving more than 7,000 pieces of goods. Customs across the country will further strengthen the control over infringement and fake goods on the Internet and special enforcement actions for postal deliveries and express mails, keep a high profile in fighting infringement and fake goods, safeguard the image of "Made in China" overseas, promote the cultivation and development of excellent enterprises of intellectual property, and boost the transformation from "Made in China" to "Created in China" and from Chinese products to Chinese brands.
  Case 4: The end of the case where Wong Lo Kat v. JDB for the title of "No.1 Drink of China"
  The Supreme People's Court made an adjudication to reject the retrial application of JDB (China) Corporation (JDC China) and Guangdong JDB Beverage Company Limited (Guangdong JDB). The Court held that the advertisement in question gave the public an impression that the herbal tea made by JDB and the herbal tea bearing "Jia Duo Bao" had been No.1 in quantity sold and sales amount on the China market for successive seven years. But, in consideration of different understandings of the above advertisement based on the public's reasonable and common knowledge, as well as the actual time of production and sale of JDB herbal tea, the advertisement in question, even not false or untrue, was one-sided and ambiguous. And such one-side and ambiguous advertisement would give JDB China and Guangdong JDB unfair advantages in competition on the market of herbal teas, thus disturbing the normal order of competition to the detriment of the lawful rights and interest of other competitors, Guangdong Phar. Holdings and Universal Health. Therefore, JDB China and Guangdong JDB's use of the advertisement in question violated Article 9, Anti-Unfair Competition Law and constituted false publicity.
  Case 5: Qihoo 360 sued Sogou Input Method for unfair competition
  Beijing Qihoo Technology Co. sued Beijing Sogou Information Service Co., Ltd. for soliciting users of 360 Search to click candidate words to access Sogou's search page while they were not informed, which confused users and constituted unfair competition. Qihoo demanded Sogou to cease the unfair competition, make apologize, eliminate negative influences and compensate Qihoo for economical loss and pay Qihoo a reasonable amount of 10 million yuan. Beijing Qihoo TechnologyCo. held that it was the right holder of 360 Search and 360 Browser. 360 Search, as an important product of the plaintiff, was very reputable and well known among users. Qihoo 360 found that Sogou solicited users to click candidate words and access Sogou's search results page when users enter key words in 360 products using Sogou Input. Sogou's action caused users confused with the search service and hijacked a great amount of data throughput and thus reduced 360 Search's opportunities. It constituted unfair competition. So Qihoo 360 sued it to the court.
  Case 6: Qihoo sued Sogou for unfair competition and claim 10 million yuan as compensation
  The court accepted the case that Beijing Qihoo Technology Co., Ltd. sued Beijing Sogou Technology Development Co., Ltd. and Beijing Sogou Information Service Co., Ltd. for unfair competition. The plaintiff claimed that it was the right holder of several applications such as 360 Shengdianwang. One of the defendants was the copyright holder of Sogou Zhushou, and the other the operator of Sogou Search and also the official website of Sogou Zhushou. The plaintiff held that the defendants' behavior was materially use of 360 products, confusing users. The unfair competition of the defendants caused great economic loss to the plaintiff. Therefore, Qihoo sued to the court and required the two defendants immediately cease all the behaviors of unfair competition and make an apology at noticeable positions of the home page of Sogou Search and Sogou Zhushou and the first page of Legal Daily and China Youth Daily for successive 100 days and publish statements on the above websites and media for 100 days to eliminate negative influences. Qihoo also required the two defendants to pay 10 million yuan as compensation for economic loss and legal fee.
  Case 7: Wong Lo Kat won the retrial of the case that it sued JDB for false advertisement
  On September 5, Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharmaceutical Holdings Company Limited made an announcement that Guangzhou Phar. Holdings and Health Industry Company Limited had received Higher People's Court of Hunan's court verdict of the retrial of the case regarding the false advertisement that "there are 7 cans of JDB every 10 cans of herbal tea". Wuhan JDB Beverage Co., Ltd. failed the retrial and was ordered to pay Guangzhou Phar. Holdings and Health Industry Company Limited 6 million yuan as compensation and about 240 thousand yuan for reasonable expenses such as attorney fee and notary fee. This case originated from an advertisement, saying that "the red-can herbal tea leading the county was renamed JDB." Wong Lo Kat, however, held that the alternation of the name caused severe damage to its trademark and reputation and thus constituted unfair competition. So it sued Wuhan JDB Beverage Co., Ltd. and its distributors and cooperating media to Changsha Intermediate People's Court.
  Case 8: Ifeng News sued Toutiao for unfair competition and claimed 20 million yuan as compensation
  On November 1, Ifeng News announced that it had sued Toutiao to People's Court of Haidian District, Beijingfor malignly coercing Ifeng's news terminal. It demanded Toutiao immediately cease the malign and unfair competition that was contrary to basic commercial ethics and pay 20 million yuan as compensation. Ifeng News held that Toutiao had not made any official statement, response and apology for its malign coercing on any platform and in any city. And Toutiao, while evading its responsibility and refusing to face up to its wrong behavior, sued Ifeng News for infringement of its right of reputation. Ifeng News believed that Toutiao was intentionally confusing the public by that malign suit.

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