Courts toughen up on bad faith trademark applications

In the just-ended series of events for World Intellectual Property Day aiming to promote public awareness of intellectual property rights, the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (TRAB), the Beijing Intellectual Property Court and the Beijing High Court have unanimously stepped up efforts to crack down on pre-emptive trademark applications filed in bad faith. Tangible progress has been made, as evidenced by some of the authors’ cases.

Protect prior used trademark that has certain influence. Ubiquiti Networks, a Silicon Valley-based high-tech business in the wireless telecoms industry, owns the wireless bridge brand “NanoStation”.

China Goldstar Technology pre-emptively obtained the registration of “NanoStation” in China. Ubiquiti Networks initiated invalidation action against the trademark. The authors managed to prove the use of the “NanoStation” mark by Ubiquiti Networks, and the fact that Goldstar had been simultaneously selling “NanoStation” products, of its own and of Ubiquiti Networks. The court held that the evidence submitted by Ubiquiti Networks proved that it had marketed wireless bridge products bearing the trademark “NanoStation” in mainland China prior to the application date of the disputed trademark.