Date: 2021-05-12
On May 12, 2021, Huawei and the CNIPA announced on the first-instance judgement, which upheld the decision to refuse the trade mark application of Huawei's "Hongmeng" (“Harmony”) mark.
Huawei applied for the registration of the "Hongmeng" trade mark in May 2019. In May 2020, the application was rejected by the CNIPA due to an objection pursuant to Article 30 of the PRC Trade Mark Law. The trade mark in dispute in this case involves the word mark "Hongmeng", and the cited trade mark is a combination trade mark of the graphic "CRM Hongmeng" and the Chinese word "Hongmeng". The disputed trade mark and the cited trade mark constitute as similar trade marks, which can easily cause confusion and misunderstanding by the relevant public.
At the same time, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court held that the evidence provided by Huawei was not sufficient to prove that the disputed trade mark was used to gain a high reputation, thus establishing a unique connection to Huawei. The trade mark is not sufficiently distinctive in terms of its designated services, and creates a likelihood of confusion to the relevant public when compared to the cited trade mark. The claims made by Huawei are not supported due to insufficient factual and legal basis.
Source: https://www.bjcourt.gov.cn/cpws/paperView.htm?id=100943972645&n=1
