16 January 2026
Trademark strategy determines outcomes; rule of law demonstrates sharpness in safeguarding rights. On 15 January 2026, the 2025 Beijing Intellectual Property Development Annual Conference, guided by the Beijing Municipal Intellectual Property Office and hosted by the Beijing Intellectual Property Protection Association, was grandly convened. This annual conference assembled judicial experts, industry leaders, and practical elites to deliberate on new development paradigms. In the annual landmark cases list released on site, the case of “Guangdong XX Home Co., Ltd. v. Hefei XX Co., Ltd. et al.: Trademark Invalidation Declaration Administrative Dispute,” represented by Beijing Tengyu Law Firm, was successfully selected as an IP landmark case by virtue of its breakthrough judicial practice in the fields of cross-class well-known trademark recognition and bad-faith registration regulation, becoming a rule-of-law highlight spotlighted at the event.
Core of the Case: Breakthrough in Well-Known Trademark Rights Enforcement Under Post-Registration Time Limit Constraints
The core dispute of this case concerned the legality determination of the contested Trademark No. 14829*** “XXGU”. The third party, Hefei XX Co., Ltd., applied for this trademark in 2014 for Class 9 power materials and related goods, while the plaintiff Guangdong XX Home Co., Ltd.’s Cited Trademark No. 3, “XXGU” (Trademark No. 3435***), was registered as early as 2003 for Class 6 metal locks and related hardware goods, and was recognised as a well-known trademark in 2012. Thereafter, the plaintiff continuously deepened its operations, garnering numerous awards and causing the influence and reputation of its rights trademark to rise continuously.
The third party, as an operator in the same industry, subjectively possessed malicious intent, knowingly applying to register an identical mark while aware of the plaintiff’s trademark renown, and the designated goods were closely related to the plaintiff’s rights trademark designated goods in terms of consumption scenarios, functions, target audience, and sales models.
However, since the contested trademark had been successfully registered for over five years, how to break through the time limit constraint to invalidate the contested trademark became the critical issue of the case.
Our firm submitted nationwide franchise records, omnichannel brand promotion credentials, high-scale revenue audit reports, and authoritative honours documentation to comprehensively corroborate that Cited Trademark No. 3 had reached the well-known standard of “widely known by the relevant public” prior to the application date of the contested trademark, and that its influence continuously deepened and its reputation significantly enhanced through subsequent continuous operations. Simultaneously, we precisely invoked the legal provision clarifying the applicable logic that “in cases of bad-faith registration, the owner of a well-known trademark is not subject to the five-year time limit,” directly targeting the essence of the third party’s unfair competition. Ultimately, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court adopted the representation opinions, judgmentally revoked the original ruling and ordered a new ruling to be issued, providing clear judicial reference for similar cases.
One Case, One Benchmark; One Argument, One Act of Craftsmanship. This case selection is a direct demonstration of Tengyu Law Firm’s professionalism in IP legal services and a powerful confirmation of the team’s ability to deeply cultivate legal practice and resolve complex disputes.
Going forward, Beijing Tengyu Law Firm will continue to anchor itself at the frontiers of IP judicial practice and the track of rule innovation, deconstructing the core difficulties of industry rights enforcement with professional depth, safeguarding the realisation of innovative value with refined services, and constructing an impregnable rule-of-law defence for the lawful rights and interests of market entities with legal wisdom, injecting sustained development momentum into the iterative upgrade of the IP protection ecosystem.
May we take law as our wings to safeguard the path of innovation; may we take wisdom as our blade to unravel the maze of rights. Tengyu Law Firm always walks alongside its clients, never ceasing its strides on the journey of intellectual property protection!
