The Chinese company “MUJI Natural Mill” sued the Japanese brand “MUJI” for trademark infringement in 2015. Now it is rumored that the Chinese copycat MUJI has filed a lawsuit again, arguing that the Japanese MUJI is suspected of “commercial defamation and unfair competition”, which many Chinese netizens can’t bear to see, and have sarcastically said that “the copycat really has two brushes”, “shameless “. The Chinese netizens were dismayed and sarcastically criticized “counterfeit really has two brushes” and “shameless ……”.
The Chinese company “MUJI Natural Mill” sued the Japanese daily goods brand “MUJI” (MUJI) for trademark infringement in 2015, and after MUJI Japan appealed, the verdict came out in 2019, and the genuine version lost. The verdict said that the parent company of MUJI Japan, Liangpin Project and Shanghai MUJI, should immediately stop infringing on the trademark rights of MUJI Natural Mill’s parent company, Beijing Mindanao, and remove the word “MUJI” from the goods, not only must The company issued a statement and awarded a total of RMB 626,000 (approximately NTD 2.7 million) in damages for economic loss and reasonable expenses.
When Japan’s MUJI lost the lawsuit to a mainland copycat brand, it was thought that the key was that the Japanese company failed to register its trademark in advance before entering China, and was preempted by the Chinese company.
At that time, Japan Ryopin Project issued a statement, saying that because the trademark “MUJI” had been registered by other companies first, Japan Ryopin Project and Shanghai MUJI could not use the trademark “MUJI” in China, but the company had used the trademark in 2014 and 2015. The company has already rectified the trademark labeling of the infringing goods.
On April 25, the case was heard in public by the Chaoyang District People’s Court in Beijing, but no verdict has yet been handed down.
The Chinese netizens could not bear to see that the mainland copycats won the lawsuit against the genuine ones and filed the lawsuit again, saying “Isn’t MUJI from Japan? How did it become Beijing?” and “Isn’t it a snatch and grab?” “Can’t you have your own brand? You have to rub it in this way”, “As long as you don’t have a face, you can make a fake one real”, “It’s obviously a robbery, but you have the face to sue first”, “Shame on you to outer space! “.
The Chinese copycat version sued the genuine version, which happened many times in China. According to the Central News Agency, after American basketball superstar Michael Jordan authorized Nike to create the Air Jordan brand, a copycat version of QiaoDan Sports (QiaoDan) appeared in China in 1999. It was unexpected that both the first and second trials ruled against the genuine “Air Jordan” brand.
Michael Jordan himself appealed to the Supreme People’s Court for a retrial, but the case was eventually rejected. Afterwards, “Jordan Sports” also bit back at “Air Jordan”, demanding that the license be stopped, and that a public apology and compensation of 300,000 yuan (about NT$1.3 million) be awarded.
In addition, in 2006, Donald Trump, who was a real estate tycoon in the United States at the time, applied for registration of the trademarks Trump, Trump and TRUMP in China, designating the use of the trademarks in Class 37 for construction services such as decoration and repair of commercial and residential buildings and restaurants, but his application was rejected by the State Trademark Office in 2009 because a person named Dong Wei registered the trademark with the same name 14 days earlier than he did. .
Trump fought a lawsuit over this for nearly a decade, and it was rejected at least four times. It was only after he was elected president of the United States in 2016 that the Chinese Communist authorities ruled that Dong Wei’s trademark was invalid and approved Trump’s trademark applications one after another.
There are also many examples of Taiwan trademarks being pre-registered in China, including New Dongyang, Din Tai Fung, 50 Lan, Baojima Glasses, Alishan Tea, Yonghe Soymilk, Gukeng Coffee, Apple Sida, Chihshang Rice, Sun Moon Lake, Pear Mountain, West Loop, Yen Nest and even China Post and Longevity Smoke, but most of them could not fight for their trademark rights back through litigation. In the case of New Toyo, for example, because the trademark was seized, it had to fight a lawsuit while entering China with brands such as “Tang Dots” and “Shanghai Baozhuan”. Only in 2012, after 12 years of litigation, did New Toyo win the case.
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