Recently, Beijing 2nd Intermediate People's Court made a ruling against Yingzi Cosmetics Co., Ltd. of Dongyang City, Zhejiang Province (hereinafter referred to as Yingzi Company) and its distributor in a trademark dispute. The plaintiff, Beiersdorf Company from Germany, was paid 120,000Renminbi due to Yingzi’s trademark infringement on "NIVEA".
Beiersdorf Company alleged that it is the owner of the mark NIVEA 妮维雅, which was registered in China in January, 1993. Upon investigation, Beiersdorf Company found that Yingzi used 欧美娜 OUMEINA trademark in its products and the mark used by Yingzi is much similar to "NIVEA”. So Beiersdorf Company brought the case before Beijing 2nd Intermediate People’s Court against Yingzi for trademark infringement and asked the court to order yingzi to stop the infringement and pay a compensation of 500,000 Renminbi yuan.
Yingzi Company argued that its mark "OUMEINA" is quite different from "NIVEA”, therefore, no trademark infringement or unfair competition was constituted.
The court reviewed the case and held that, when Yingzi used its mark in its products, the pattern and word arrangement of "OUMEINA" are similar to "NIVEA”. Such acts constituted trademark infringement. Therefore, the court made a decision in favor of Beiersdorf Company in the first-instance, ordering Yingzi Company to pay economic loss of 120,000 Reminbi yuan to the plaintiff.
