Recently, Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court made a decision for a trademark administrative case in favor of Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC (hereinafter as Jaguar Land Rover PLC) and rejected the registration of No. 6280133 trademark "JAGUAR".
In 2007 Zhejiang Serene Electric Appliance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter as Zhejiang Serene) applied for the registration of “JAGUAR” trademark, on Class 11 covering goods of beverage cooling device, freezers and refrigerators.
Then Jaguar Land Rover PLC filed an opposition against the No. 6280133 “JAGUAR” trademark before the Trademark Office, claiming that the opposed trademark was the copy of its prior trademark No.1352142 “JAGUAR and device” on Class 12 registered in 2000, covering goods of motor vehicle, and should not be approved for registration. However, the opposition was refused. Jaguar Land Rover PLC then applied for a review before TRAB.
After examination, TRAB held that the two trademarks were registered to be used on different goods and there were obvious differences in terms of functions, consumers, sales channels, etc. The coexistence of the two marks will not cause any market confusion. Thus, TRAB approved the registration of the opposed trademark.
Dissatisfied with the decision, Jaguar Land Rover PLC appealed before Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court. After hearing the case, the court held that the cited trademark of No.1352142 “JAGUAR and device” is a combination of No. 27572 trademark of “JAGUAR” and the No. 362998 trademark of “device”, both of which had been identified as well-known trademarks in 2004. Therefore, the cited trademark can be safely identified as the well-known trademark on automobile products. Because the opposed trademark is identical to the cited mark in Spelling, and the targeted customers of the two alleged trademarks overlapped, the coexistence of the two trademarks in the market may mislead the public to connect the opposed trademark with Jaguar Land Rover PLC, thus market confusion may be caused.
Based on the facts above, the court overturned the decision of TRAB and rejected the registration of the opposed trademark.