On November 3, a court published its administrative judgment on the dispute between Xiaomi Technology Co., Ltd. and the State Intellectual Property Office.
The involved trademarks are a Xiaomi trademark No. 9927567 and an International Registration No. 1331842F “MI” trademark. The dispute was over a graphic trademark domain name initially registered by Xiaomi. Another organization re-registered the same graphic trademark name, but their registration was revoked in the litigations.
During the administrative ruling, the court discovered that the Xiaomi trademark No 9927567 hadn’t been used for three consecutive years.
According to Chinese Trademark law, when a registered trademark is redundant (not in use) for three straight years, the Trademark Office could revoke the involved trademark or order its owner to rectify its non-usage.
Therefore, based on the Trademark regulations, the first cited “Xiaomi’ trademark was revoked after a second-instance litigation procedure. However, International Registration No. 1331842F “MI” trademark (second-mentioned trademark) has been assigned to the plaintiff (Xiaomi).
The court’s ruling is as follows:
- Revocation of the Trade Commentary [2020] No. 346743 “About No. 25990705 “Xiaomi xiaomi.com MI and Tu” trademark refusal to review the decision” issued by the defendant’s State Intellectual Property Office
- The State Intellectual Property Office of the defendant asks the defendant to make a new decision
The new decision the defendant has to make is based on a set of facts arrived at in the courts.
The New Facts
The court maintained the revocation of the first cited trademark, while the second cited trademark gets transferred to the plaintiff. Consequently, the appropriate barriers to registration of the disputed trademark have changed, and so the outcome of the court ruling shall change.Accordingly, the court canceled the corresponding accusation. The defendant now has to re-examine the new realities and make a decision based on the new facts.
