Napa Valley won trademark case in China

Recently Beijing High People’s Court issued the final judgment in the case in which the American Napa Valley Vintners company opposed a company trying to register a similar trademark “SCREW KAPPA NAPA 螺旋卡帕”. The Court made the decision in favor of Napa Valley Vintners and thus refused the registration of “SCREWKAPPA NAPA 螺旋卡帕”.

No.4502959, applied on Feb. 6, 2005

No.4662547, applied on May 18, 2005

On February 6, 2005, Napa Valley Vintners filed a trademark application for No.4503959 with “100%NAPAVALLEY”  and its figure, which was registered on December 28, 2007. The trademark claimed protection for wine products falling into Class 33 in accordance with Nice Classification. On May 18, 2005, Zhejiang Zhongshang Investment Co. Ltd. filed atrademark application (No.4662547) “SCREW KAPPA NAPA 螺旋卡帕” in relation to wine products as well.

Despite the fact that Napa Valley Vintners filed an opposition to the ChineseTrademark Office (CTMO), on June 18, 2013, CTMO approved the registration of the trademark in dispute because CTMO deemed that there was no obstacle in the above-identified “100% NV NAPA VALLEY”.

Not satisfied with the decision, Napa Valley Vintners brought the case to the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (TRAB), however, the appeal was rejected and the registration of “SCREW KAPPA NAPA 螺旋卡帕” was confirmed.  Therefore, Napa Valley Vintners initiated a judicial administrative litigation against TRAB in front of Beijing No.1 IntermediatePeople’s Court.

The first instance court held that the distinctivepart of trademark in dispute shall be “螺旋卡帕”  (pronounced as "Luoxuan Kapa") for Chinese consumers. Such Chinese characters were not included in the American trademark. On the contrary, the English part of the two trademarks contained visible difference, which could not cause confusion among the public.

NapaValley Vintners did not give up and furhter appealed the case to Higher Court. Finally Beijing Higher People’sCourt was of the opinion that although the trademark in dispute contained only one of the English words of Napa Valley, the “纳帕” in Chinese and Napa were the distinctive part of the cited trademarks. When the public saw the “NAPA” word on wine products, they may link the trademark in dispute with the trademark of “纳帕河谷” (NapaValley). So the court made the above judgment that rejected the registration oftrademark application (No.4662547) “SCREW KAPPA NAPA 螺旋卡帕” in relation to wine products for being confusingly similar with the prior trademark “100% NV Napa Valley”.