Plaintiff Bin Li He Zong (Xiamen) Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. ("Bin Li") appealed the CNIPA's decision to refuse the registration of the "Bently Lu Zhi in Chinese" mark with No. 41562537 designated in Class 33 for wine related goods to the Beijing IP Court. The Beijing IP Court dismissed Bin Li's appeal.
The issue was whether the application for registration of the disputed trademark violated Article 44(1) of the Trademark Law (trademark obtained through deceit or other unfair means). The Court held that the plaintiff had applied for the registration of 51 trademarks, including several trademarks containing the words "Bentley" and "Bentley in Chinese", and including marks containing the wing design. "Bentley", "Bentley in Chinese" and the wing design are marks that enjoy certain degree of fame owned by Bentley Motors Ltd., the third party in the automobile goods. The plaintiff applied for the registration of a number of trademarks that were highly similar to the third party's Chinese, English and graphic marks, which was obviously in bad faith. The plaintiff squatted the third party's prior trademark applications with a large number of applications, which has seriously disrupted the order of trademark registration management, damaged the public interest, and these marks should not be approved for registration. Although the disputed mark has not yet been approved for registration, the CNIPA correctly refused the registration by applying Article 44(1).
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