The Preventions And Remedies Of Trademark Genericisation-Taking “Jin-Jun-Mei” Case As An Example

"Jinjunmei" trademark dispute case lasts for six years. And after two trials, the final judgment concluded on 12 December 2013. The case involves the identification of generic name and the judgment would affect the interests of many tea merchants in Wuyi mountain. Therefore, the trial of the case has drawn widespread attention in the society. The court of first instance held that the “Jin-Jun-Mei” contained significance and met the formal and substantive requirements for trademark registration, and it can be registered as a trademark. While in the second trial the Beijing Higher People’s Court put " Jinjunmei " recognized as the name of a black tea varieties, so the generic name of goods cannot be registered as a trademark. Though the court’s judgment settled there are still widespread controversies on the trademark genericisation of “Jin-Jun-Mei”. Our law does not clearly define the identification standard of generic name, which bring the difficulties and challenges on identifying the genetic name in the judicial practice and cause the different understanding on the guidelines for action from the judgment.In this article, the author of "Jinjunmei" trademark dispute case analyzed in detail, and proceed from the difference in the second trial of first instance verdict, to understand the factors and levels to measure people’s court trial standards during the trial, through the judgment and the plaintiff defendant both proof-depth analysis of the material, to explore the context of trademark law under the generic name identification time point, standard and certification and other issues identified and tried to make the appropriate reference model to identify common name. In the article, the author also analyzes "Jinjunmei" was eventually identified as the cause of the generic name from the multiple perspectives of producers, competitors in the same industry, consumers, and to "Jinjunmei" as a warning, drawing on some well-known trademarks protection on the basis of successful experience, proposed to prevent trademark was the generic name of several constructive comments.Because the fierce competition of the market, if the seller is a lack of awareness of their rights of business entities, not timely registered trademarks, or improper use of the trademark; untimely protect their legitimate rights and interests, or that competitors vicious competition in the industry, consumer awareness by misleading, etc., these conditions could result in a potential trademark become a generic name, or trademark has been registered so that the loss was significant. This not only brought a loss to producers on the reputation and the economy, but also allows consumers to lose a convenient way to judge the quality of products. In the long term, this is not conducive to the producer is not conducive to the consumer, is contrary to the law of development of the market. Therefore, under the conditions of market economy, the main market operators to raise awareness of intellectual property rights, and strengthen the concept of trademark rights, to avoid similar "Jinjunmei" case situation from happening again, is very important to have practical value of.