On Tuesday 18^th May 2021, the Hong Kong-based legal magazine China Business Law Journal (CBLJ) releases the winners of its “China Business Law Awards 2021”. The awards are designed to showcase the diversity of talent in the legal services market while offering assistance to in-house readers as they consider and select their legal advisers.

Wanhuida is ranked in the category of intellectual property (Trademark) PRC Firms.

The firm is lauded for its incredible performance in winning a series of trademark disputes in China for New Balance against a Chinese company Qierte, which led to an encouraging end in March 2020 in a retrial proceeding before the China Supreme People’s Court. The court issued two retrial decisions, which withdrew the Beijing High Court rulings and determined, due to the similarity of New Balance’s cited trademarks, the two disputed trademarks of the “N” logo registered by Qierte were invalidated. The SPC rulings may serve as precedents for similar cases where bad faith demonstrated in the way a registered trademark is used may have an impact on the determination of the mark’s similarity.

China Business Law Awards are based on nominations and comments received mostly from China-focused corporate counsel, senior managers and legal professionals around the world. The CBLJ research team consulted widely with law firm clients by conducting surveys to ascertain the level of their satisfaction with the services provided by the relevant firm. To determine the winners, each firm’s landmark deals, cases and other notable achievements in the past year were also evaluated carefully in combination with the nominations and comments they received.