Wahaha Nutrition Express And Other Trademarks Have Been Challenged By Danone.

Legal experts point out that they have ulterior motives.

At the end of 2007, at the end of the year, the State Trademark Office rejected the objection raised by Danone Asia Pte Ltd's Golden Eagle Investment Company to the Wahaha Group's "crooked" trademark registration application. Danone recently filed an objection to trademarks such as "nutrition express line" of the famous brand such as Wahaha group.

The whole story of "trademark competition" by Dawa

Since the beginning of the battle of Dawa, at the end of 2007, Danone, in order to achieve its goal of low price mergers and acquisitions, on the one hand, pressed the request from the French government to request the Wahaha Group to negotiate with them. On the eve of the peace negotiations, the State Trademark Office and the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board raised objections or reexamination applications for trademarks such as "crooked, crooked", "activated" and "yearning" owned by the Wahaha Group. However, as many of them could submit the trademark objection or review application, there were many trademarks that had already passed the dispute period stipulated in the trademark law, and the Wahaha Group had been approved and registered by the State Trademark Office five or six years ago.

Tracing the cooperation between Danone and Wahaha, we can find that although the Wahaha Group authorized the joint venture to use "Wahaha" and "very" trademarks through the trademark licensing contract signed with the joint venture company, Wahaha Group and Daneng group and joint venture company also expressly agreed that the Wahaha Group had the right to own or use the trademark which is different from or similar to the licensed trademark, which can be verified from the relevant provisions of the trademark licensing contract (see Appendix).

Wahaha Group believes that Wahaha Group, as an independent civil legal body, is not a subsidiary enterprise of Danone Group. It enjoys full autonomy and survival and development rights in accordance with Chinese law. Its application for registration of trademarks in accordance with the law is also the legitimate right granted by the trademark law.

Trademarks such as "nutrition express line", "crooked" and "activation" are trademarks designed and developed by Wahaha Group. They were indeed licensed to joint ventures without compensation.

But Danone Group and its subsidiaries are now applying for objections to the Wahaha Group's trademark or reviewing applications, or even asking them to pfer the trademarks to joint ventures without compensation. Obviously, it is impossible.

Danone objection has been rejected.

In July 2008, the Trademark Office of the State Council made a "crooked" objection to one of the applications of Danone's objection (2008) Trademark No. 05023 "ruling". It found that the objection reason of King Jia company was not valid. The Wahaha Group's "crooked" trademark should be approved for registration.

After that, Danone challenged the ruling of the Trademark Office and asked for a review.

In response, legal experts pointed out that the battle between Danone and Wahaha from the expansion of joint venture disputes to the trademark field is clearly another bad means of maliciously making use of trademark objection and review procedures in an attempt to achieve its goal of low-cost acquisition of Wahaha Group.

Although some objections and review applications of Danone are still under review due to the time limit for trial, the law must be fair, and any unreasonable or even rascal request can not be supported by law.

Therefore, the law will return to Wahaha a justice!

At the same time, legal experts have also issued an appeal to improve and amend the existing Chinese legal procedures through the efforts of the legislature, so as to avoid certain enterprises' ulterior motives and give the trademark owners more timely and effective legal protection.

Appendix:

1. The trademark used by the Wahaha Group to authorize a joint venture is limited to the "Wahaha" and "very" trademarks listed in Annex 1 as specified in Clause 1.1, including any "Wahaha" and "very" words and / or Wahaha or very graphic trademarks created or designed after the date of the contract.

2. Article 3.1 of the trademark licensing contract stipulates that "in order to avoid doubt, Party A (Wahaha Group) has the right to own or use other trademarks which are not identical or different from those trademarks". That is to say, Wahaha Group has the right to apply for registration or use (including licensing other uses) and any other trademarks that are not identical or different from those listed in Annex 1 of the trademark licensing contract, including "nutrition express line", "crooked", "activate", "think" and other trademarks.

3, the Wahaha Group and the joint venture signed the First Amendment Agreement No. fourth of the trademark licensing contract in 2005, and the updated list of Licensed Trademarks was reconfirmed. The trademark used by the Wahaha Group to approve the joint venture does not include such trademarks as "nutrition express line", "crooked", "activate", "think" and so on.

Based on this, in July 2008, the Trademark Office of the State Council made (2008) trademark "05023" "ruling" on the objection of one of the Danone objection applications. It found that the objection reason of King Jia company was not valid. The Wahaha Group's "crooked" trademark should be approved for registration.