On April 25, the Beijing High Court released the Top 10 Judicial IP Protection Cases and the Top 10 Judicial Trademark Authorization and Confirmation Cases in 2023. In 2023, Beijing courts applied punitive damages in a total of 26 IP infringement. A significant year-on-year increase.
The trademark infringement and unfair competition disputes involving the "Jegere in Chinese" brand
In the trademark infringement and unfair competition disputes involving "all-round" imitation of "Jagermeister" beer, the defendant imitated the "Jagermeister" mark from liqueur bottle labels, bottle caps, website promotions and other aspects, which was considered an "all-round" brand imitation. In this case, the court applied punitive damages and ordered the defendant to pay RMB 10 million (USD 1.38 million) in compensation.
Mast-Jagermeister SE ("Mast-Jagermeister") is the owner of registered trademarks such as "Jägermeister in Chinese" and "JÄGERMEISTER." The Sheng Luo La Liquor Company ("Sheng Luo La") used logos such as "Jager Haguleisi in Chinese" and Deer Head logos on labels, bottle caps, and official websites of the liquors it produced and sold. The packaging and decoration were the same or similar, and the words "German Master Group Co., Ltd. In Chinese" and other words are used on the website. The defendant applied for the registration of the "Jager Haguleisi in Chinese" trademark on Class 33 on liquors, and after obtaining the registration, he and Sheng Luo La jointly used the "Jager Haguleisi in Chinese" mark on liquor products. Pu Yuan Garden Trading Company is a distributor of Sheng Luo La that sells "Jager Haguleisi in Chinese" liquor on JD.com stores and combines Mast-Jagermeister's "Jagermeister" liquor with "Jager Haguleisi in Chinese" Liqueur. Mast-Jagermeister claimed that the three defendants had infringed upon its trademark rights and constituted unfair competition, and claimed that punitive damages should be applied.
The first instance court found that Mast-Jagermeister's "Jagermeister" trademark had been well-known to the relevant public in China on liquor products before the defendant applied to register the "Jager Haguleisi in Chinese" trademark, and constituted a well-known mark. The defendant applied to register a trademark similar to Mast-Jagermeister's trademark, and the three defendants' use of the trademark constituted an infringement of Mast-Jagermeister's well-known trademark rights. The overall appearance similarity between the accused infringing products and Mast-Jagermeister's products is relatively high, and the accused infringing products were mixed and sold with Mast-Jagermeister's products, which can easily cause the relevant public mistakenly believe that the said products belong to a series of products or originated from the same source. The defendants' actions had damaged the goodwill of Mast-Jagermeister's "Jagermeister" brand. Sheng Luo La's false publicity has the subjective intention of taking advantage of and free riding Mast-Jagermeister's reputation. Mast-Jagermeister had issued multiple rights protection statements and sent demand letters to the three defendants. However, after receiving the demand letters, Sheng Luo La and other defendants did not respond in time and continued to infringe. The infringement was serious and punitive damages were applicable. The first instance court held that the three defendants should immediately stop the infringement and eliminate negative impact. Sheng Luo La should compensate Mast-Jagermeister for economic losses of RMB 10 million and the remaining two defendants should be jointly and severally liability for the compensation. Sheng Luo La and Pu Yuan Garden Trading Company appealed. The second instance court dismissed the appeal and affirmed the original judgment.
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