Infringement Dispute between Shandong Qilu Zhonghe Technology Co., Ltd. and Qilu Securities Co., Ltd. about the Exclusive Right to Use the “Qilu”Trademark
Judgment Document No.: 再审民事 (2011)民申字第222号
Mr. Zheng Hong represented the defendant Qilu Securities (now renamed as Zhongtai Securities) in the retrial and his statement of defense was as follows: except for the relatively less distinctive features of the plaintiff’s "Qilu" trademark, the defendant was a securities brokerage company, which follows a strict market access system by the country. By contrast, the plaintiff was a general software technology company without any securities qualification. Therefore, the business scope of the two parties was totally different, which would not cause any confusion thereof.
The Supreme People's Court adopted Mr. Zheng Hong's opinion, and clearly judged that the trademark infringement should consider the possibility of causing public confusion.
In 2012, this case has been included in the Supreme People’s Court’s Case Guidance on Intellectual Property Trials (4th Edition). Being controversial in the fields of IP theories and judicial practice, the problem of trademark confusion has been clearly regulated at the first time in Article 57 in the newly implemented Trademark Law of the People’s Republic of China in 2014.