Recently, Beijing Higher People's Court made a second-instance ruling which affirmed the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (hereinafter TRAB)’s decision approving the registration of “雪佛龙” trademark on Class 12 covering goods of automobile, motorcycle, engine, vehicle, ship, etc.
It is learnt that the natural person named Jinchun Ji filed a trademark registration of xuefulong (“雪佛龙” in Chinese) before the Trademark Office(TMO) under the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) on Class 12 covering goods of automobile, motorbike etc.. However, the U.S. Chevron Intellectual Property Co., Ltd (hereinafter as “Chevron”), the subsidiary of Chevron Corporation field an opposition against the application claiming that the opposed trademark is similar to its mark “Chevron” (“雪佛龙”in Chinese version), which was registered on petroleum oil (crude oil or refined oil), industrial oil, etc., and has gained market popularity. In addition, automobile and motorbike have been closely related to petroleum. Therefore the opposed trademark not only harmed the interests of Chevron Company, but also cause confusion among consumers.
After review, the TRAB ruled that there were obvious differences between the goods of automobile and petroleum in function, distribution channels and target consumers. Therefore the same trademark in different classes of goods would not cause market confusion. What’ s more, although “Chevron”(“雪佛龙”) has gained certain popularity, Chevron could not prove its popularity for automobiles.
Chevron then filed an administrative lawsuit against Ji and TRAB before the court, but the ruling of TRAB was maintained both in the first and second instances, and the registration of trademark “雪佛龙” on Class 12 was finally approved.
