“Timberland”商标侵权及不正当竞争案

  Case Analysis

TBL Licensing LLC v. Zhongshan Tongye Shoes Co., Ltd. et al.

“Timberland”商标侵权及不正当竞争案

Docket No.: 4337, second instance (终), civil case (民) , (2019) 01 Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court of Zhejiang Province (浙)

Lower Court Docket No.: 15388, first instance (初), civil case (民), (2018) 0110 the Primary People's Court of Yuhang District, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province (浙)

二审案号：（2018）浙0110民初15388号

一审案号：（2019）浙01民终4337号

Prefatory Syllabus

裁判要旨

"Decoration" itself refers to the modification of the appearance of goods, with the role of beautifying goods. A shape which is necessary only for obtaining a technical effect and a shape which gives goods a practical value cannot be protected as a unique packaging or decoration. However, if the decoration has both decorative role and practical value and it can be distinguished from its function physically or conceptually, it is qualified to be protected as "decoration" within the meaning of Anti Unfair Competition Law.

“装潢”本身系对商品外表的修饰，起到美化商品的作用；仅为获得技术效果而需有的形状以及仅使商品具有实用性价值的形状，不能作为特有包装、装潢受保护。但同时兼具装饰作用与实用性价值的装潢，能够与其功能在物理上或观念上相区分的部分，可以作为《反不正当竞争法》中规定的“装潢”予以保护。

Basic Facts

案情介绍

TBL LICENSING LLC,

Plaintiff-Appellee

v.

ZHONGSHAN TONGYE SHOES CO., LTD.,

QIAN *,

Defendants-Appellants

ZHEJIANG TAOBAO NETWORK CO., LTD.,

Defendant

上诉人（原审被告）：中山市同业鞋业有限公司（简称同业公司）、钱某

被上诉人（原审原告）：添柏岚许可有限责任公司（TBL Licensing LLC，简称添柏岚公司）

原审被告：浙江淘宝网络有限公司（简称淘宝公司）

TBL Licensing LLC ("TBL") in China is known as "Timberland", "添柏岚", "踢不烂" and other names. It was formally founded in 1973, and based on its unique shoe-making skills, the company has created the world's first pair of waterproof boots, with the "大黄靴" (Yellow Boots) as one of the most popular goods and well-known among consumers. TBL found that Zhongshan Tongye Shoes Co., Ltd. ("Tongye"), and Qian * had used the mark "" on the heels, soles, insoles and shoe boxes of footwear products and the position was almost the same as that of the trademark "" of TBL, which was very easy to confuse consumers and constituted infringement of the above registered trademark of TBL. Moreover, TBL also found that the "Thesameway踢不烂10061大黄靴" produced and sold by Tongye and Qian * had completely imitated the Yellow Boots of TBL. Tongye and Qian * had also used "踢不烂" to introduce and publicize this product, showing obvious intention in taking advantage of the well-known "Yellow Boots" of TBL and resulting in confusion among consumers from objective point of view. Therefore, the above act had been suspected of constituting unfair competition. TBL then filed a lawsuit with the Primary People's Court of Yuhang District, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province.

添柏岚公司在中国被称为“Timberland”“添柏岚”“踢不烂”等，其正式创立于1973年，基于其独特的制鞋技术，打造出了世界上第一双防水靴，其中最受消费者欢迎且为大众所熟知的是“大黄靴”（Yellow Boots）。添柏岚公司发现，同业公司、钱某将“”标识用于鞋类产品的鞋后跟、鞋底、鞋垫以及鞋盒上，使用位置与添柏岚公司“”商标的使用位置几乎相同，极易造成消费者的混淆，构成对添柏岚公司上述注册商标的侵权。同时，添柏岚公司还发现，同业公司、钱某生产、销售的“Thesameway踢不烂10061大黄靴”，完全效仿了添柏岚公司的大黄靴产品，同业公司、钱某还使用了“踢不烂”来介绍、宣传该款产品，其攀附添柏岚公司“大黄靴”的知名度意图明显，且客观上已经造成了消费者混淆，上述行为已经涉嫌构成不正当竞争。添柏岚公司遂诉至浙江省杭州市余杭区人民法院。

By first instance, the court held that:

In terms of trademark infringement, the shoe products produced and sold by Tongye and Qian * had infringed the TBL's right to trademark in dispute, and infringed TBL's five exclusive rights to use trademark in dispute.

余杭法院一审认为：

关于商标侵权。同业公司、钱某生产、销售上述侵犯添柏岚公司涉案商标权的鞋产品，侵犯了添柏岚公司的涉案五项商标专用权。

In terms of unfair competition, the "Yellow Boots" of TBL had gained high awareness among the relevant public through long-term and on-going promotion and advertisement, which should be recognized as goods with certain influence. In particular, although to a certain extent, the unique name "踢不烂" meant solid and durable characteristics of the shoes, in the process of the continuous advertisement by TBL and the continuous use by the relevant public, "踢不烂" had established a corresponding relationship with the products of TBL and achieved distinctiveness. So it should be recognized as TBL's unique name of the product with certain influence. Regarding the decoration part of the product in dispute, the court held that decoration itself was the modification of the goods appearance, with the role of beautifying goods. A shape which was necessary only for obtaining a technical effect and a shape which gave goods a practical value could not be protected as a unique packaging or decoration. However, if the decoration had both decorative role and practical value, which could be distinguished from its function, it is qualified to be protected as "decoration" within the meaning of Anti Unfair Competition Law. After eliminating the parts with only functional role and the parts could not be distinguished from the function in concept, the court was able to determine that the overall color matching of Yellow Boots (including the color matching of vamp, sole and collar, the shape of eyelet, the color combination of shoelaces, the pattern shape and layout of sole) had formed the overall decoration of Yellow Boots. In conclusion, Qian * and Tongye had constituted unfair competition acts by using the unique name, unique packaging and decoration of goods with a certain of influence without authorization by the other party.

关于不正当竞争。添柏岚公司的“大黄靴”产品经过长期、持续的推广宣传，在相关公众中取得了较高的知名度，应当认定为具有一定影响力的商品。其中特有名称“踢不烂”虽然一定程度上指代了鞋子本身坚实耐用的特点，但是经过添柏岚公司的持续宣传以及相关公众的持续使用，“踢不烂”已经与添柏岚公司的产品建立对应关系，取得了显著性，应当认定为添柏岚公司的一定影响的产品的特有名称。对于涉案产品的装潢部分，法院认为，“装潢”本身系对商品外表的修饰，起到美化商品的作用，仅为获得技术效果而需有的形状，以及仅使商品具有实用性价值的形状，不能作为特有包装、装潢受保护。但同时兼具装饰作用与实用性价值的装潢，能够与其功能相区分的部分，可以作为《反不正当竞争法》中规定的“装潢”予以保护。在剔除仅实现功能的部分以及观念上无法与功能相区分的部分后，可以认定大黄靴的整体颜色配比（包括鞋面、鞋底、靴领的配色以及鞋眼的形状、鞋带的颜色组合、鞋底的花纹形状及排布方式）组成了大黄靴产品的整体装潢。综上，钱某、同业公司的行为，构成擅自使用他人一定影响的商品的特有名称、特有包装、装潢的不正当竞争行为。

In terms of subjective malice in infringement, given the awareness of the Yellow Boots in dispute, especially for the fact that Tongye and Qian * had specially sold Timberland products before, they were very familiar with the Yellow Boots of TBL. They were fully aware of the decoration and name of the Yellow Boots, but still did not avoid by taking reasonable measures, instead, they openly publicized in Baidu Tieba by describing "Thesameway 10061, the reborn of classic Yellow Boots, best seller of Senwei shoes store", so it could be identified that Tongye and Qian * had obvious subjective malice in infringement.

关于侵权主观恶意。考虑到涉案大黄靴产品的知名度，尤其是同业公司、钱某之前曾专门销售Timber land的产品，对添柏岚公司的大黄靴产品非常熟悉，其明知大黄靴产品的装潢、名称，仍然不予合理避让，反而在百度贴吧中公然宣称“Thesameway 10061，大黄靴经典复刻，森威鞋店口碑产品”，可认定同业公司、钱某的侵权主观恶意非常明显。

In conclusion, by first instance, the court judged that Tongye and Qian * should compensate RMB 400,000 to the plaintiff TBL for economic losses (including reasonable expenses).

综上，余杭法院一审判决同业公司、钱某赔偿原告添柏岚公司经济损失（含合理费用）40万元。

Tongye and Qian * refused to accept the first instance judgment and appealed to Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court of Zhejiang Province. Hangzhou intermediate People's Court ruled in the second instance to reject the appeal and upheld the original judgment.

同业公司、钱某不服一审判决，向浙江省杭州市中级人民法院提起上诉。杭州中院二审判决：驳回上诉，维持原判。

Typical Significance

典型意义

This case has clarified how to identify the shape of the goods themselves as special packaging decoration. In particular, for whether the shape designed for technical effect or function could be identified as special decoration for protection, the court had solved this problem by judging whether the shape of the goods could be distinguished from other parts based on concept, which has reference value for similar cases.

本案就如何对商品自身的形状认定为特有包装装潢的审理思路进行了明确，尤其是针对为实现技术效果或功能而具有的形状能否作为特有装潢保护的问题，法院采用了观念可区分的思路进行判断，对类似案件具有参考意义。

Moreover, in this case, for the act of obviously infringing and copying the appearance of well-known goods of other party, although the profit made by the infringer and the loss of the infringed products cannot be determined, which makes it impossible to determine the amount of compensation by directly applying punitive damages, the court pointed out that when considering the compensation through legal compensation, we can treat the situation of malicious infringement as a punitive factor, so as to effectively fight against malicious infringement act.

同时，本案中，法院指出，对明显侵权复制他人知名商品的外观的行为，虽然侵权人获利及被侵权损失无法确定，导致无法直接适用惩罚性赔偿确定赔偿金额，但是通过法定赔偿考量赔偿金额时，仍然可以恶意侵权的情形作为惩罚性因素予以考量，从而有效打击恶意侵权行为。

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