A Beijing court has ruled in favour of Facebook and against a Chinese company which had registered “face book” as a separate trademark.
The court said the firm had “violated moral principles” with “obvious intention to duplicate and copy from another high-profile trademark”.
The Zhongshan Pearl River company had registered the name in 2014.
Zhongshan-based Zhujiang Beverage, which sells products like milk-flavoured drinks and porridge, said it registered its trademark “face book” in 2011. The company faced objections from Facebook, but gained approval from the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board the country’s trademark authority in 2014 to use it.
Facebook is blocked in China but has recently gone on a charm offensive to access the Chinese market.
Western companies are frequently struggling to have their trademarks upheld in China as they have to prove that their brand name is also well known within the country.
Only last week, Apple lost a trademark fight in China, meaning firms that sell handbags and other leather goods can continue to use the name “IPHONE”.
Xintong Tiandi trademarked “IPHONE” for leather products in China in 2010.
Apple filed a trademark bid for the name for electronic goods in 2002, but it was not approved until 2013.
There had been a change in attitude about intellectual property rights in China in recent years. This appears to have been a case of ‘squatting’, which involves a Chinese company registering the name of a high-profile Western business in order to benefit by forcing the company to either buy it back or take the matter to court.
This ruling demonstrates that courts are beginning to take this problem seriously. This is all the more interesting, as Facebook is currently barred from operating in China.