In December 2019, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) issued an opposition decision in favor of Fendi against a trademark “ ” No.27421753 applied by a Chinese company in class 25. The opposed trademark incorporates Fendi’s Latin and Chinese trademarks “芬迪”, but the trademark as a whole is somehow different from Fendi’s cited marks in terms of appearance and pronunciation. Still the CNIPA found that the registration and use of the opposed trademark is likely to cause confusion, because 1) Fendi’s marks have acquired high reputation over the goods such as apparel covered by the opposed trademark; 2) the applicant of the opposed trademark operates in the logistics industry yet applied to register trademarks in respect of clothes and the like, without reasonable explanation on the similarities with Fendi’s marks. This decision signals that the CNIPA is strengthening the protection of famous brands by disapproving registration of opposed trademark with lower level of similarity with the cited marks.

Contributed by: Xue Ao