Recently, the Fujian High Court concluded a second-instance trademark infringement dispute between Sewoong Global Co., Ltd., ("Sewoong") and Jingdezhen Dehang Trading Co., Ltd. ("Dehang"), Xiamen Dajun Trading Co., Ltd. ("Dajun"), Feifan Nvlang (Xiamen) Trading Co., Ltd. ("Feifan Nvlang"), an individual Zhou, an individual Lin. The court applied punitive damages based on the obvious serious malicious intent of the infringement by Dajun and Dehang. The court also ordered the infringing products and packaging to be destroyed immediately. The defendants shall be jointly compensating Sewoong for economic losses and reasonable expenses to stop the infringement, totaling RMB 5.925 million (USD814,152)
Cited Marks
The court found that: First, the accused infringing product was the same gods as the approved goods of Sewoong's "ADLV" mark with reg. no. 28261402, "acmé de la vie" mark with reg. no. 39050794, "acmédelavie" mark with reg. no. 38630247, and "acmédelavie" mark with reg. no. 29065353. The alleged infringing product used identical labels, hang tags, laundry tags, and outer packaging bags, which constitutes infringement. The packaging and hangtag of the accused infringing product use the "www.acmedelavie.com" logo, which includes the main distinctive part of the "acmédelavie" mark with reg. no. 38630247. Therefore, there is basically no visual difference between the two and constitute infringement. The sales carried out by Dehang and Dajun infringed Sewoong's trademark rights.
Second, Dajun and Dehang comprehensively counterfeited the Cited Marks and obtained huge sales volume and sales. Sewoong filed 25 complaints with e-commerce platform, however, Dajun and Dehang provided false materials and statements to the platform to escape review and continue to sell infringing products. After Sewoong filed this lawsuit, although the flagship store involved stopped selling infringing products, the customer service of the flagship store still diverted customers to the WeChat platform to continue for purchase. Dajun admitted that the infringing products involved in the case were provided to Dehang, but it refused to provide the source of the goods without justifiable reasons. It should be identified as the manufacturer of the infringing products involved in the case. In summary, Dajun and Dehang's infringement was obvious and intentional, and the infringement was serious, so punitive damages should be applied.
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