Beijing Higher People's Court recently concluded a seven-year trademark dispute between a natural person surnamed Hong and the Nike International Ltd.(hereinafter as Nike).
In 2014, Hong applied the No. 3962005 trademark “科比KB-KOBE”, which was approved registration on Class 18 covering commodities of suitcase, backpack, wallet, traveling bag etc. in 2007.
After the “科比KB-KOBE” trademark was published, Nike filed an opposition against the trademark before the Trademark Office, claiming that the “科比KB-KOBE” trademark offended the name rights of Kobe Bean Bryant(“Kobe Bryant” for Short), an American professional basketball player. The opposition was refused by the Trademark Office.
Nike then filed the request before the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (TRAB) for reexamination, and submitted media resources of report on Kobe Bryant’s personal information and the agreement proving Kobe Bryant to be the brand ambassador of Nike and the spokesman of Nike sports shoes.
After reexamination, TRAB held that the evidences provided by Nike failed to prove that “KOBE” and “Kobe Bryant” are closely inter-connected in other fields. “KOBE” is just a common family name in English-speaking countries. Thus, the opposed trademark did not offend Kobe Bryant's name rights nor did it cause harm to Nike’s commercial rights. At the same time, there was not any evidence proving that “KOBE” and “科比” has earned great popularity and high reputation as a trademark on products of suitcase and wallet etc. before the registration date of the opposed trademark. TRAB then made the decision approving registration of the opposed trademark.
Dissatisfied with the decision, Nike then filed an administrative lawsuit against TRAB's ruling claiming that Nike and Kobe Bryant under the contract should enjoy prior rights of “KOBE” and “科比”(Chinese version of Kobe) trademark because “KOBE” and “科比” trademarks had earned high market reputation before the registration of the opposed trademark. Nike further submitted the supplementary documents including the Men's Professional Basketball Contract between Nike and Kobe Bryant’s entertainment company and the Nike Standard Terms etc.
After review, the court held that all the documents provided by Nike could not prove that Nike International Ltd. was licensed by Kobe Bryant. Besides all the documents submitted during the administrative procedure were produced after the registration date of the opposed trademark. Based on the above facts, the court refused Nike’s appeal and affirmed the decision of TRAB.
