23 June 2021
Case Spotlight
Tencent Wins the Final Instance Trial for the Trade Mark Protection of Mobile Game "Honor of Kings "
腾讯“王者荣耀”商标维权终审胜诉
Date: 2021-05-25
On 25 May 2021, the Beijing Higher People’s Court issued its judgement on the administrative dispute between the CNIPA and Tencent.
Tencent sent a request to the CNIPA to for the invalidation of the trade mark “Honor of Kings” owned by Guizhou Wenqu Chengyu Liquor Co., Ltd. (“Guizhou Chengyu”) because it was identical to its registered trade mark. As the CNIPA maintained the trade mark registration in dispute, Tencent appealed to the Beijing Intellectual Property Court.
The Beijing Intellectual Property Court held that in accordance to Article 32 of the 2014 Trade Mark Law, “Honor of Kings” could be protected as a prior right and interest in the name of the work. The disputed trade mark “Honor of Kings” contains the same words as the game “Honor of Kings”. This constituted as a sign of similarity and the trade mark application made by Guizhou Chengyu had malicious intent. It was therefore decided that the original decision should be revoked and that the CNIPA should redecide the case. The CNIPA refused to accept the judgement of the Bejing Intellectual Property Court and filed for appeal to the Beijing Higher People’s Court.
In the second instance, the Beijing Higher People’s Court held that Trade Mark Class 33 “fruit wine (alcoholic), liquor, wine” and other goods in which the disputed trade mark was registered under were goods used in daily life, and there is a high overlap between the relevant public of such goods and that of games. The registration of the disputed trade mark on liquor and other goods will easily mislead the relevant public to believe that the liquor and other goods are from Tencent, or have a specific connection with them. It was also held that the registration of the disputed trade mark fell under the circumstances of "damaging the existing prior rights of others" as under Article 32 of the 2014 Trade Mark Law. Therefore, the Beijing Higher People’s Court rejected the CNIPA’s appeal and upheld the original judgement of the Beijing Intellectual Property Court.
Source: https://wenshu.court.gov.cn/website/wenshu/181107
ANFZ0BXSK4/index.html?docId=e19d041e9a834205830ead300009e3f3
Global Head of Trade Marks, Rouse
rtan@rouse.com
