The trademark protection of “Hermes” Lululemon in yoga pants is not so smooth

Lululemon, Chinese name: Lululemon, is the leading brand of Canada Lululemon Sports Products Co., Ltd.

(hereinafter referred to as Lululemon).

It is a sportswear brand founded by Chip Wilson in Vancouver, Canada in 1998.

At the beginning of the brand, the company was a studio during the day, and turned into a yoga studio at night.

In 2013, it began to enter the Chinese market.

At the end of 2016, it began to open physical stores in China.

So far, there are 79 stores in China, with a rapid development momentum.

At the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games, “Lululemon”, as the sponsor brand of the Canadian delegation, became the largest “black horse” that night because of the red down jacket, and therefore attracted more attention.

At the beginning of September, Lulu Lemon released its performance in the second quarter of fiscal year 2022: net revenue increased by 29% year on year, reaching $1.868 billion.

As of September 6, ETT, Lulu Lemon had a market value of $40.1 billion, second only to Nike in the field of sports brands.

As the saying goes, “there are too many people who are popular, right and wrong.” When the brand becomes popular and the trademark is snapped up, the phenomenon of free riding will become more and more serious.

It was found on the official website of the Trademark Office that there were 62 objection cases with Lululemon as the objector, mainly involving the rights protection of “Lululemon” similar trademarks and related trademarks.

There were also 118 review cases as applicants, mainly involving the application for invalidation and review of “Lululemon” related trademarks.

The majority of the objections and review decisions published on the website of the Trademark Office were issued after 2020, which means that in just two years, Lulu Lemon has taken nearly 200 rights protection measures against its own trademarks.

It can be seen that they attach importance to the brand.

However, active protection of rights is different from success.

China’s Trademark Law has clear provisions on infringement of the exclusive right to use a registered trademark.

Without the permission of the trademark registrant, the use of a trademark identical with or similar to its registered trademark on the same kind of goods, or the use of a trademark identical with or similar to its registered trademark on similar goods, which is likely to cause confusion, is an infringement of the exclusive right to use a registered trademark.

For example, LuLuLemon has never carried out trademark layout for the “LuLuLemon” trademark of category 30.

Therefore, it has been registered by three companies successively.

The No.

57367268 trademark was rejected, the No.

21364553 trademark was invalid, and the No.

49527577 trademark, Lulu Lemon Company, applied for objection, but failed.

The main reason is that the goods or services designated to be used by the trademarks of both parties have obvious differences in function, use, service content, etc., which do not belong to similar goods or services, and the concurrent use should not cause confusion and misunderstanding of consumers.

The Trademark Office did not support Lulu Lemon’s request, and still approved the trademark registration No.

49527577.

After that, Lulu Lemon Company could only protect its rights through invalidation procedure, withdrawal procedure or litigation procedure.

Although the road of rights protection is very difficult, after the brand becomes bigger and stronger, they do not want to have a brand with the same name.

Although the products are different, they are likely to pose a threat to their own brand, so they have to increase the efforts to protect their rights.

Through the above cases, we can conclude as follows: 1.

The trademark registration should be carried out as early as possible, the defense registration is indispensable, and the trademark monitoring should be comprehensive.

2.

The reason why “LuLuLemon” is called “Hermes” in yoga pants is that its products have the advantages of high elasticity, high permeability, soft comfort and fashion.

After all, a pair of yoga pants that can sell for 900 yuan must stand the test of the market.

3.

The trademark rights can be protected by means of objection, invalidity, withdrawal, litigation, etc., and the application for objection can be preferred, because the application for objection is made during the trademark announcement period, and the trademark exclusive right has not been determined at this time.

4.

In the current Internet information age, more and more enterprises are joining the ranks of brand layout in all categories, which can not only protect the brand, but also reduce some of the trouble of rights protection.

Previous recommendations 1.

A new round of amendments to the Trademark Law and its implementing regulations is intended to clarify the civil liability for damages caused to others by malicious squatting 2.

A beautiful flower grows out of the dust and smoke! 3.

The foreign coat of the “Mousse” mattress was stripped off, and Unisplendor Xinnuo kindly reminds you that the epidemic prevention achievements are hard won and need to be jointly maintained by everyone.

Adhere to scientific and standardized wearing of masks; Even if you are vaccinated, you should also do a good job of personal protection and never take it lightly.

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If the content of the article involves copyright and other issues, please contact us at 15901416340 mail@creatshine.com02 Founded in 2012, CREATSHINE Intellectual Property Agency Co., Ltd.

strives to achieve high-quality development through unremitting efforts.

It is a customer-centric whole process service-oriented organization and strengthens the whole industry chain service capability integrating rights confirmation, rights protection, data, retrieval, analysis, consultation, transaction and training.

At the same time, Unisplendor Xinnuo Intellectual Property is committed to protecting the interests of customers and the industry from being infringed.

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