BRITAGMBH and BRITAGMBH Water Purification System (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. sued to Shanghai Minhang Court, claiming that Shanghai Kangdian Industrial Co., Ltd. infringed its exclusive right to use trademarks, which constitutes unfair competition. Shanghai Minhang Court ruled that Shanghai Kangdian Industrial Co., Ltd. had committed acts of infringement of the plaintiff's exclusive right to use trademarks and unfair competition, and shall compensate the plaintiff for economic losses of 2.3 million yuan.

Knowing clearly that the plaintiff enjoyed the exclusive right to use registered trademarks such as "BRITA" and "Bilande", the defendant still uses the same or similar trademark logo as the plaintiff's registered trademark on the related goods such as product inspection reports, product packaging boxes and brochures, and sells it through WeChat official account and online platform without the consent from the plaintiff, which constitutes an infringement of the plaintiff's exclusive right to use registered trademarks.

It is especially noteworthy that the plaintiff was allowed to register the "BRITA" trademark in 1993, and the "碧然德" trademark corresponding to the "BRITA" trademark in 2010. In addition, the plaintiff also registered a series of sub-brand trademarks. However, since 2012, the defendant has continuously applied for registration of trademarks that are the same as or similar to the plaintiff's aforesaid trademarks on related categories of goods. The defendant also used the "德碧然德" trademark as a citation trademark to declare invalidity against the plaintiff's registered trademark "碧然德" (No. G1164988), and raised objections to six trademarks, including "碧然德", of the plaintiff that are still under registration. The defendant damaged the plaintiff's prior rights through malicious scrambling and abuse of objection handling procedures, which was intended to destroy the plaintiff's competitive advantage and had obvious subjective malice. The above-mentioned series of behaviors of the defendant disturbed the market competition order, thus damaging the legitimate rights and interests of the two plaintiffs, which constitute unfair competition.

Article 2 of China's Anti-Unfair Competition Law stipulates: "Businesses shall, in their production and distribution activities, adhere to the free will, equality, fairness, and good faith principles, and abide by laws and business ethics. The ‘act of unfair competition’ means that a business disrupts the order of social economy and causes damage to the lawful rights and interests of the other businesses, in violation of this Law. On such ground, the court held that, although the Anti-Unfair Competition Law does not make special provisions for the defendant’s behavior, it shall be deemed to constitute unfair competition as long as it conform with the actus reus stipulated in Article 2 of the Law.

In this case, the defendant's behavior violated the principle of good faith and recognized business ethics, and disrupted the market competition order. The legitimate rights and interests of the two plaintiffs were actually damaged by the competition behavior, so the defendant's behavior fully met the constitutive requirements of unfair competition behavior stipulated in Article 2 of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.