The future of a bar in downtown Nanjing now hangs in the balance, after a court found it guilty of violating the trademark of internet giant, Baidu. For the illegal use of the name, the bar is now searching for ¥800,000 to pay in compensation.
It was yesterday evening when it was reported that the Nanjing Intermediate People’s Court confirmed the bar’s actions constituted infringement. But it has taken more than 2 years to bring about the ruling.
“Passion Baidu Bar” is located on the second floor of Nanjing’s Mandu Culture Square on Beiting Alley, opposite to downtown’s 1912.
Back in November, 2007, the four defendants in the case representing the bar successfully registered a number of companies, including “Passion Baidu”, “Dream Baidu” and “Baidu Bar”, reported The Paper.
At the time, the registrations were arguably perfectly legal, as Baidu had yet to enter the catering business. Now however, Baidu is integrated with the catering industry, having invested in or acquired catering enterprises, or through its setting up of special rankings for caterers in its search engine results.
And it is this which has had the court tied up in knots since 2019.
The Baidu company believes that it enjoys the exclusive right to the registered trademark, No. 1579950, and that such has become a well-known trademark due to its long-term use, reputation and influence.
As such, the defendants’ use of the Baidu trademark infringes the plaintiff’s exclusive right to use the trademark. The defendants had utilised the Chinese characters for Baidu (百度) on the bar’s door, posters and electronic advertisements.
Baidu means “100 degrees” in Chinese, the English translation of which the bar also used in its signage. And in an even more brazen example of copyright infringement, the bar ditched “passion” from its name when creating its official WeChat account, calling it simply “Nanjing Baidu Bar”.
With the case finally at a close, the Nanjing court ruled that Passion Baidu Bar violated the Baidu company’s trademark rights and constituted unfair competition. The Court was also of the opinion that the general consumer will mistake the bar is opened by Baidu, the internet giant, and held that the defendant’s behaviour weakened the significance of the well-known trademark.
The four defendants were ordered to cease the infringement, change the name of their enterprise and and compensate Baidu to the tune of ¥800,000. Baidu had originally sought compensation of ¥3 million.
