On 8 July, 2008, Renaissance Hotel Holdings Inc. appealed to the Beijing No.1 Intermediate Court against the decision made by the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (TRAB) under the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) in which TRAB approved the registration of the No. 1388818 trademark “WINDSOR RENAISSANCE and device” (the opposed mark). On June 30, the court made a decision in favor of Renaissance Hotel Holdings Inc.
Upon review of the case, the court found that the word part of the opposed trademark “WINDSOR RENAISSANCE” is composed of 2 words: “WINDSOR” is the name of a place and “RENAISSANCE” is identical with the plaintiff’s cited hotel brand. Since it is quite common to name a member hotel of a hotel chain with the name of hotel chain and the name of the place where the member hotel is located, the co-existence of the opposed mark and the cited mark will mislead the consumers as to the source of the services. The court then made a ruling which overturned the decision of the TRAB.
