Zhang Zhiquan
Since last year, a number of trademark rights protection cases have been raging. Recently, dozens of "honeysuckle dew" production enterprises in Jiangxi have also encountered disputes over the "honeysuckle" trademark. The Jiangxi Health care and Disinfection Products Industry Association issued a statement saying that the 603857 no. 5 honeysuckle trademark had been revoked as early as 1994, and the litigation unit Shanghai Bili Company was maliciously amassing wealth. At present, Bili Company has submitted applications for withdrawal of lawsuits in a number of cases, but the defendant enterprises have not accepted this, and some have sent applications and counterclaims to the court, and the counterclaims plaintiffs have malicious lawsuits.
Legally registered trademarks are protected according to law, which is a well-known legal knowledge of trademark patent protection. However, driven by interests, many trademark holders have taken the opportunity to amass wealth by filing malicious lawsuits, and some even use trademarks that have been cancelled according to law to carry out so-called litigation rights protection. This much-publicized "honeysuckle" trademark rights protection lawsuit is a typical case.
Today, Billy Company has applied for the withdrawal of all the cases sued in an attempt to withdraw from the lawsuit. However, this move can no longer fool the many defendants who have been sued for infringement. These defendants "treated others in the way of others", or did not allow them to withdraw their lawsuits, or filed counterclaims in accordance with the law, releasing a strong warning signal that the malicious trademark lawsuits were still colored in accordance with the law, and their effects are worth looking forward to.
According to Article 238 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on the Application of the Civil Procedure Law, "In cases where a party applies for withdrawal of a lawsuit or can be handled according to law, if a party has violated the law and needs to be dealt with in accordance with law, the people's court may not allow the withdrawal of the lawsuit or the withdrawal of the lawsuit." "The defendants who were previously sued by Bili Company for trademark infringement did not accept their withdrawal of the lawsuit, and some of the defendants filed counterclaims, which is a legitimate act of rights protection with legal basis." Although the court has not yet dealt with the claims of these defendants, it is difficult for Bili Company to try to calm the people by withdrawing the lawsuit.
The key to determining whether Bili Company's trademark protection behavior constitutes a bad faith lawsuit lies in whether the "Honeysuckle" trademark it holds is legal and valid, and whether it has the subjective intention of amassing wealth in bad faith and whether it has objectively obtained improper benefits. According to public information, the "Honeysuckle" trademark has been revoked by the State Trademark Office as early as 1994, and Bili Company filed a rights protection lawsuit with the invalid "Honeysuckle" trademark, which was obviously in bad faith. At the same time, from the perspective of judicial statistics, as of January 13, 2022, Bili Company has filed hundreds of rights protection lawsuits in courts across the country, and its claim amount is estimated to exceed 10 million yuan. It can be seen that whether from the perspective of subjective malice or from the perspective of actual consequences, the so-called trademark litigation and rights protection behavior of Bili Company has constituted a malicious litigation.
The direct reason why malicious lawsuits similar to the use of trademarks to protect rights in the form of porcelain rights have repeatedly succeeded is that the alleged infringers have not provided conclusive evidence. Under the litigation rule of "who claims and who proves", if the defendant is not able to produce evidence, it is likely to bear the responsibility of losing the lawsuit. This also reminds the judicial organs that for the handling of similar disputes, they cannot only rely on the evidence presented by the parties to the litigation to find out the truth, but should take the initiative to investigate and collect evidence in accordance with their authority. Otherwise, serious litigation will evolve into a "competition of evidence", which is not conducive to the realization of substantive justice.
In recent years, trademark bad faith litigation and rights protection cases have continued to appear, which not only runs counter to the original legislative intention of the Trademark Law to protect innovation, but also wastes judicial resources, and its harm cannot be underestimated. In particular, some malicious litigants have encouraged the evil trend of bad money expelling good money, and it is even more necessary to be highly vigilant. While emphasizing that legitimate users of trademarks should do sufficient evidence, judicial organs should also take the initiative to draw boundaries on the fair use of trademarks and give a slap to bad faith litigants through judgments in typical cases.
Only by using color against bad faith litigants in accordance with the law and curbing the vision of bad faith trademark litigation can it truly shine into reality.
Comics/Chen Bin