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B. Duck gets class A protection!
Source: whatsticker.online
Recently Quanzhou Intermediate People's Court in Fujian Province issued a judicial decision recognizing protection under Anti-Unfair Competition Law to the special design of the B. Duck shoes.
The decision admitted that the overall appearance of three models B. Duck's shoes constitutes decoration with a certain influence.
The brand “B. Duck” has been created in 2005 by Sëmk Products Limited, a Hong-Kong company originally engaged in designing products for other companies. Sëmk created the B. Duck brand with a duck as its theme, gaining popularity among fans in Hong Kong, the mainland and overseas. Sëmk offers a wide range of product types from electronics, home products, sanitaryware, gifts, kitchenware, stationery items to travel goods that nearly cover all aspects of daily lives.
Source: shop4ducks.co.uk
New product collections and designs are introduced onto the market very often. In 2018, a company named Deying Trade Shenzhen Co. Ltd., the licensee in mainland China for footwear products detected that Fujian Miffy Rabbit Sporting Goods Co., Ltd. (The Defendant), had set-up a Wechat public account which promotes three following shoes’ that look very similar with theirs.
| The Plaintiff’s Shoes | The Defendant’s Shoes |
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Source: Wechat Public Account "IP code"
The judge firstly held that, thanks to the evidence from the plaintiff that three above-mentioned shoes were proved to be on sale on Taobao before the defendants’ shoes and that a large amount of consumers had purchased and had known them, so to be considered a decoration with a certain influence.
Secondly, the judge recognized that the defendant’s three shoes were highly similar to plaintiff’s in terms of shoes shape, line, coloring and layout, representing an imitation of the decoration of the plaintiff’s shoes.
Thus, such act constitutes unfair competition conduct in violation of Article 6.1 of Unfair Competition Law. Namely, it’s prohibited to use logos identical or similar to others’ decoration with certain influence.
On a different page, the judge also declared that the overall appearance of three above-mentioned shoes cannot be determined as the object of the protection of Copyright Law such as literature, art and natural sciences, social sciences, engineering technology and can’t constitute the work specified in Copyright Law, so the defendant didn’t violate Copyright Law.
HFG Law&Intellectual Property
