Date:21 April 2022
The SPC has issued the top 10 intellectual property cases and 50 typical intellectual property cases in Chinese courts in 2021. Of particular note was the selection of the Wyeth LLC trademark infringement case in which the Court made a significant award of punitive damages in favour of a foreign entity.
The American company, Wyeth LLC ('Wyeth'), a global producer of infant-milk powder, entered the Chinese market in the 1980s and registered the trademarks "??"(Wyeth in Chinese) and the English word 'Wyeth'. Wyeth (Shanghai) Trading LLC ('Wyeth Shanghai') was licensed to use these trademarks, and obliged to protect them, in China. When an unrelated company, The Guangzhou Wyeth Maternal and Child Supplies Co, Ltd. ('Guangzhou Wyeth'), registered the '??' and 'Wyeth' trademarks in relation to washing and baby products, Wyeth and its affiliates took legal action against them and succeeded in invalidating the registrations. Despite that, Guangzhou Wyeth continued to use the marks, deriving huge profits from online stores jointly operated with others.
Wyeth and Wyeth Shanghai then filed a further lawsuit against Guangzhou Wyeth and others. The first-instance court ruled for the Plaintiffs, fully supporting their monetary claims. The Defendants all appealed. The Zhejiang Higher People's Court upheld the previous decision, noting that the Plaintiffs had clearly requested the application of punitive damages. It held that because of Guangzhou Wyeth's behavior and the illegal profits that had been proven, and applying the 'three-time compensation standard', the sum of 30 million yuan (approx. US$ 4.5 million) proposed by Wyeth and Wyeth Shanghai was appropriate. The appeal was dismissed and the original judgment upheld.
Source: SPC https://www.court.gov.cn/zixun-xiangqing-355881.html
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