Article 31 of China Trademark Law rules that an applicant shall not register in an unfair means a mark that is already in use by another party and has certain influence. The trademark “Goot” of our Japanese client, TAIYO ELECTRIC IND.CO.,LTD., used on soldering guns in Class 7, was registered in bad faith by a Chinese company on the goods handheld tools in Class 8 in bad faith. We lodged an appeal at the Court on behalf of our client, arguing that the registration of the opposed mark was in violation of Art. 31 of China Trademark Law.

We filed evidence in proof of the use of our client’s cited mark in China before the filing date of the opposed mark in respect of the same or similar goods. The Beijing High Court finally ruled that the registration of the opposed mark is in violation of Art. 31 of China Trademark Law. In this case, the Court took the following facts into consideration: the distinctiveness of the client’s trademark, the similarity of the opposed mark with the client’s cited mark, and the opposed party being located in the same geographic area of the distributors of the client in China. The judges believed that under the circumstances, stricter examination criteria should be applied.