Recently, Tianjin Municipal High People’s Court released the White Paper on 2011 Tianjin Intellectual Property Judicial Protection and the top ten typical IP cases of 2011 in Tianjin. And the case that NTD represented Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company (hereinafter refers to as Wrigley Co.) and its subsidiary in China, Wrigley Confectionery (China) Co.Limited (hereinafter refers to as Wrigley China) against Tianjin Pu Tian Tong Le Food Factory and the owner, Jinfeng DENG over trademark infringement and unfair competition was elected as the head of the ten typical cases. The summary of the case is introduced as follows:
Tianjin Pu Tian Tong Le Food Factory is an individual proprietorship enterprise of Jinfeng DENG. Their production of Xylitol chewing gum of “倍达”brand illegally used the characteristic packaging basically the same as “益达”(“Extra” of Chinese version) of Wrigley China’s and highlighted using the words “Wrigley Company (H.K.) Limited Producer” on the bottle of the product without authorization. Wrigley Co. alleged that such behavior violated the exclusive right of its registered trademark of “Extra益达”and that this constituted unfair competition and then brought the lawsuit into court.
After two instances, the court held that because the plaintiff’s trademark of "Extra益达" is highly popular and has a large influence on the public’s recognition of the brand, such behavior of the defendant would mislead and confuse the consumers, and constituted trademark infringement. Additionally, the unauthorized use of similar package with the “Extra益达”of Wrigley Co. thereby constituted unfair competition. Therefore the court order the defendant to cease the act of infringement, eliminate the bad influence, and pay a total of 200,000 Renminbi yuan for compensation to the two plaintiffs.