{"id":4505,"date":"2024-12-27T18:56:42","date_gmt":"2024-12-27T10:56:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/en.junlongip.com\/?p=4505"},"modified":"2025-01-13T16:05:12","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T08:05:12","slug":"use-not-intended-to-identify-source-of-goods-is-not-considered-as-use-in-the-sense-of-trademark-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/en.junlongip.com\/?p=4505","title":{"rendered":"Use Not Intended to Identify Source of Goods Is Not Considered as Use in the Sense of Trademark Law"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Supreme People’s Court (2009) Minshen No. 268<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

The Supreme People’s Court held that use that does not play the role of identifying the source or the\u00a0producer cannot be deemed\u00a0as\u00a0use in the sense of the trademark\u00a0law. Therefore, the use of the same or similar mark by others does not constitute\u00a0acts that infringe the exclusive rights of registered trademarks.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Unregistered trademarks are protected by law, but the prerequisite for protection is that\u00a0they can actually function to distinguish the source, rather than the possibility\u00a0of identifying the source of the goods or services. This prerequisite is embodied in Article 13 of the Trademark Law\u00a0(regarding protection of well-known unregistered trademarks), in Article 31 of the trademark Law (regarding priorly used marks having certain influence), and in\u00a0Article 5(2) of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law\u00a0(protection of\u00a0unique name, outer packaging, and the\u00a0packaging of well-known goods).<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

If a party wishes to claim rights over an unregistered trademark, he or she must\u00a0have used the claimed mark as a trademark intended to identify the source of goods. In other words, the party can establish\u00a0rights of a trademark only after he intends to use the mark in a way to distinguish the supplier or distributor.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

In this case, Pfizer Inc.\u00a0claimed that\u00a0the Chinese character\u00a0\u201c\u4f1f\u54e5\u201d\u00a0is\u00a0an unregistered well-known trademark, and shall be vested in Pfizer Inc.\u00a0The Judge from the Supreme People\u2019s court reasoned that although a variety of social\u00a0media reports associated the Chinese character with the registered trademark \u201cViagra\u201d, these actions were not performed by Pfizer Inc.\u00a0That is, Pfizer Inc.\u00a0did not use the Chinese character\u00a0to identify\u00a0their products. Besides, these\u00a0reports were\u00a0all about the efficacy, sales, and side effects of the product. Pfizer also clearly stated that \u201cViagra\u201d\u00a0is its\u00a0trademark, and that it has never used \u201c\u4f1f\u54e5\u201d\u00a0in mainland China. Therefore, \u00a0\u201c\u4f1f\u54e5\u201d\u00a0cannot be determined to reflect the true intention of Pfizer\u00a0to use it as \u00a0an identifying\u00a0trademark.\u00a0Therefore, the evidence provided by Pfizer for judicial\u00a0review\u00a0was\u00a0insufficient to prove that \u201c\u4f1f\u54e5\u201d was\u00a0eligible for the protection as an\u00a0unregistered trademark.\u00a0Although many media reports used\u00a0“\u4f1f\u54e5” instead of\u00a0“Viagra”, Pfizer and others did\u00a0not use it as a trademark\u00a0either objectively or subjectively, so Pfizer cannot claim protection of this Chinese character as unregistered trademark.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Regardless of a registered trademark or an unregistered trademark, the basis for its legal protection is ultimately reflected in its\u00a0function to identify source of goods. If a use is found to cause\u00a0confusion as to\u00a0the source of the goods or services, then it may constitute\u00a0a\u00a0trademark infringement\u00a0if other legal standards\u00a0are also met.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p><\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
Professional IP team<\/h5>

Junlong law firm have been committed to the professional and extensive practice of intellectual property law, and have been striving to become a leading patent boutique firm in China.
We offer extensive experiences in all facets of intellectual property service, litigation and dispute resolution, portfolio management, due diligence, securing and maintaining worldwide IP rights, and worldwide intellectual property licensing.
Our intellectual property team includes 30+ experienced attorneys-at-law and patent attorneys, and 60+ skilled technical experts, focusing on telecommunication, customer electronic, semiconductor mechanical, and biomedicine.
Our goal is “Bridging IP Rights and Successful Business”.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Supreme People’s Court (2009) Minshen No. 268 The …<\/p>\n

Use Not Intended to Identify Source of Goods Is Not Considered as Use in the Sense of Trademark Law<\/span> \u67e5\u770b\u5168\u6587 »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[52,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles-","category-ip-insight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/en.junlongip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/en.junlongip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/en.junlongip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/en.junlongip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/en.junlongip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4505"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/en.junlongip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4521,"href":"http:\/\/en.junlongip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4505\/revisions\/4521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/en.junlongip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/en.junlongip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/en.junlongip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}