Tmall’s Copycat Pay 1.5 Million Yuan out of Infringement

The much-concerned trademark infringement case among Alibaba, Tmall and Guangdong Tianmao Investment Group CO., Ltd.(Guangdong Tianmao) finally comes to an end with the Higher People’s Court of Zhejiang ruling in favor of the plaintiff. On April 10, the court rejected the defendant’s appeal request and decided to uphold the judicial decision made in the first instance, according to which Guangdong Tianmao, its 16 affiliates and the corporate representative should pay 1.5 million Yuan to Alibaba Group Holding Limited and Zhejiang Tmall Network Limited.

It is said that since 2015, the defendant has spent over ten million Yuan in registering 17 companies including “Tianmao Investment”, “Tianmao Cosmetics”, “Tianmao Electronics”, “Tianmao Jewelry” and “Tianmao Biotechnology”, covering almost every aspect of daily life. In addition, the copycat even used a very similar trademark, causing great confusion to consumers.

As early as 2013, the corporate representative registered a domain name gz-tmall.com and applied for the same or similar trademarks and domain names as Alibaba through its affiliates.

Legal experts hold that such behaviors have increased since the transition from contributed capital to subscribed capital lowered down the cost of setting up a company. Once infringed, the company can complain or file a lawsuit to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce or local courts, requesting the other company to change its name.

In this case, the court ruled that Guangdong Tianmao Catering Management Co., Ltd. constituted trademark infringement by highlighting the "Tmall" logo. Guangdong Tianmao and its subsidiaries violated the principle of good faith and well-recognized business ethics, undermined the market competition order and constituted unfair competition.

April 11, 2019 

Source: Zhejiang Online

Photo from: Wu Jiawei/zhol.com