On the morning of March 9, Mr. Wang Qiuliang, President of Shanghai Intellectual Property Court, presided over an appeal concerning a trademark infringement between the appellant, a building material, hardware & decoration store in Shanghai, and appellee, a blade company in Ningbo. A collegial panel was formed with Judges Hu Mi and Xu Fei. The blade company in Ningbo is the right holder of a registered trademark, which is approved to be used on stationery knives, pencil sharpeners and paper cutters, etc. It held that the building material, hardware & decoration store in Shanghai, which sold counterfeit cutter blades bearing its registered trademark without its consent, infringed upon its exclusive right to use the registered trademark. During the trial, the collegial panel conducted court investigations focusingon whether the notarial certificateinvolved was legal and valid and whether the appellant sold infringing products, and fully heard both parties’ debate and opinions. After confirming that the first-instance court ascertained the facts clearly, President Wang Qiuliang asked if the two parties were willing to reach reconciliation, and received positive answers. With the mediation presided over by President Wang Qiuliang, the two parties ultimately reached a reconciliation agreement and performed the agreement on the spot. President Wang Qiuliang elucidated to the parties in court that given that it’s been difficult for right holders to produce evidence in intellectual property cases for long, notarization of the purchase of the alleged-infringing product in this case is the most common way for right holdersto obtain evidence in intellectual property litigations so far and is conducive to solving right holders’difficulty in collecting evidence in intellectual property litigations. If there is no evidence to prove the notary induced or instigated the appellant to commit tortious acts during purchase or the notarized content is untrue, this way of evidence collection doesn't damage the legal interests of the appellant. In addition, the appellant, as an individually-owned business, should be fully aware of the harm of selling counterfeit products bearing others’ registered trademark to the society, pay attention to protecting others’ intellectual property rights, exercise strict control over supply channels to leave no chance for the manufacturers of counterfeit products, invoice the buyers when selling products for future reference, and acquire wealth by law.
