Recently, Beijing Higher People's Court rendered the final ruling by maintaining the first-instance decision of the Beijing No.1 Intermediate Court and rejecting the registration of the trademark "家得福JIA DE FU and device".
In December, 2003, Zhu Jianpeng applied for the registration of trademark "家得福JIA DE FU and device" covering Class 35. The mark was then opposed during the publication period on the ground of similarity with registered trademark of Carrefour(“Jia Le Fu”家樂福 in Chinese version), the French international hypermarket chain. Carrefour owns three trademarks No. 789821 “家樂福Jia Le Fu”, No. 931650 “家樂福Jia Le Fu” and No. 955522 “家乐福 Jia Le Fu”, which was approved for registration in November 1995, January 1997 and February 1997 respectively, covering class 35. However, the opposition was rejected by TMO.
The case was then brought before the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (TRAB) under the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) for reexamination. TRAB held that the opposed mark is similar to Carrefour’s marks in word composition, combination of letters and pronunciation; and the difference has no distinctiveness. The use of the opposed mark in class 35 would easily cause confusion among consumers. Therefore, TRAB rejected registration of the opposed trademark in April, 2011.
The case was then appealed before the Beijing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court, which maintained the decision of TRAB.
