KEY POINTS

Recycling old beer bottles and filling them with goods identical or similar to  trademark owners’ and putting them back into the market for sale, but failing to effectively block the embossed characters of other’s registered trademarks on the bottles, which easily misleads the public, these are stipulated by court as trademark infringement that brings damage to the exclusive right of others to use registered trademarks. 

BASIC FACTS 

In March 2020, Tsingtao Brewery (Rongcheng) Co., Ltd. complained to Weihai Municipal Market Supervision Administration, claiming that a company in Weihai (hereinafter referred to as the party involved) infringed its exclusive right to use the registered trademark (青岛啤酒TSINGTAO). Investigation showed that Tsingtao Brewery Co., Ltd. registered the trademark No.1304176 "青岛啤酒" and the trademark No.1351701 "TSINGTAO" on Class 32 products ("beer" and other commodities). The bottleneck of beer bottles produced by Tsingtao Brewery Co., Ltd. has the embossed characters of "青岛啤酒" and "TSINGTAO". According to industry practice, the party involved have used recycled old wine bottles as their own beer containers for a long time, some of which still had the embossed words "青岛啤酒TSINGTAO" on the bottleneck, but they were sold with their own trademarks and packaging during usage, without effectively blocking the embossed words "青岛啤酒TSINGTAO" on the bottleneck. 

PENALTY DECISION 

In the process of beer production and sales, the party involved used their recycled beer bottle with the embossed words "青岛啤酒TSINGTAO" as their beer container. After cleaning the original paper label of beer bottle, they sold the product with their own trademark and packaging. However, the party involved failed to effectively block the embossed words of "青岛啤酒TSINGTAO" at the bottleneck of the bottle. As a result, the relevant public may easily misunderstand the source of the product or might confuse on whether there is a specific connection between the party involved and Tsingtao Brewery Co., Ltd., which has caused damage to the exclusive right to use the registered trademark of “青岛啤酒” and “TSINGTAO”, and constitutes an infringement of the exclusive right to use the registered trademark as stipulated in Article 57.7 of the Trademark Law. The case-handling organ shall order the party involved to immediately stop the infringement and impose administrative penalties. 

GUIDING SIGNIFICANCE 

This case involves recycling containers with other people's registered trademarks for the protection of the exclusive right to use registered trademarks in the field of reuse. According to the nation’s policy on resource recycling and industry practice, glass containers are allowed to be recycled, but the use of which shall abide by law. 

Containers recycled from others are often filled with commodity similar or identical to the right holder’s. If the containers are put into the market again in the case where the signs such as embossed characters that are difficult to remove on the containers are not effectively blocked, the relevant public may be easily confused on whether there is a specific connection between the source of goods or the producer of goods and the owner of registered trademarks on containers, thus infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of the owner of registered trademarks, which should be stopped and corrected. 

In this case, it is clearly determined that the sale of canned beer in recycled old beer bottles without effectively blocking the original trademark logo is a trademark infringement, which solves the problems of difficulty in identification of similar cases and unclear qualitative basis clauses.