International Law

Trademark Infringers Say the Funniest Things

By Stan

Hat tip to Danwei for providing the link to this interesting little bit o’ China IP news:

Yunnan-based coffee producer Hogood Coffee (????????????) is playing the victim after government employees confiscated Hogood non-dairy creamer which was illegally using the “Coffee-Mate” (????) name, which in China is a registered trademark of multinational food and beverage giant Nestlé.

(. . .)

Hogood CEO Xiong Xiangru (???) told reporters after the confiscation that the company had no idea that Coffee-Mate was a trademark ? despite it being clearly marked as such on all Nestlé Coffee-Mate products.

Xiong’s denial seems more implausible considering that Hogood has been a supplier of beans to Nestlé, which it grows on farms in Dehong in southern Yunnan.

OK, so far this sounds pretty weak, and not all that interesting. The “I didn’t know it was a trademark” excuse does not get you very far, particularly when the infringer is doing business with the trademark holder. But wait a second, the next bit is kind of fun, at least for trademark geeks.
(More)

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Full post as published by China Hearsay on September 27, 2009 (boomark / email).