China’s Shanghai High People’s Court on February 18 upheld a lower court ruling in favor of Chinese famous furniture maker Beijing Century Beking Furniture Co., Ltd. (北京世纪百强家具有限责任公司) in a complaint accusing competitors Shanghai Langjv Industry Co., Ltd. (上海朗聚实业有限公司), Shanghai Bangying Investment Management Co., Ltd. (上海邦赢投资管理有限公司), Germany Top 100 International Holding Group Ltd. (德国百强国际控股集团有限公司), and Ma Guifu (马贵福) of infringing its trademarks and ordering them to pay Beking 11.96 million yuan ($1.9 million) in damages.

The damages award in this case is noted as one of the top awards for Chinese furniture makers.

Beijing-based Beking was founded in 1996 and began to register a series of trademarks with the Trademark Office of the China National Intellectual Property Administration in 2001. Its registered trademark No. 3262084 was recognized by the Trademark Office as a well-known brand in China in 2011 and as a well-known brand in Beijing by the Beijing Municipal Administration for Market Regulation in 2013.

Beking filed a lawsuit with the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court accusing the four defendants of manufacturing and distributing furniture using infringing trademarks in 2018. The lawsuit said that defendant Ma Guifu, the actual controller of Langjv and Bangying, founded Germany Top 100 International Holding Group Ltd. in Hong Kong in 2014 and began to manufacture and distribute furniture products and materials through the three companies. Beking estimated their sales of infringing products to reach as high as over 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion). The trial court agreed with the plaintiff’s arguments and awarded it 11.96 million yuan ($1.9 million) in damages in 2019.

The defendants appealed the case to the Shanghai High People’s Court in 2020. The appeals court upheld the trial court decision.

The case docket no. is (2020)沪民终256号, whose English transliteration is 256, second instance (终), civil case (民), (2020) Shanghai High People’s Court ((2020)沪).