Screenshot from the video of Guizhou Liquor Industry's social platform
Recently, "Kobe Sauce Wine" has attracted great attention in the market, because an account named "Guizhou Kobe Liquor" successfully registered on social platforms and released a video saying that it will launch "KEBI WINE".
Soon, Guizhou Kobe Bryant Liquor was questioned by netizens about touching the late star Kobe Bryant, and the majority of fans were outraged. Because in addition to the account name linked to Kobe, the two liquor products in the promotional video are "Kobe 8" and "Kobe 24", the bottle design is highly similar to Kobe's jersey, and it is also marked with the letters "Kobe Liquor" and "KB" LOGO, and No. 8 and No. 24 are also the jersey numbers worn by Kobe Bryant on the Lakers before his death.
Are a large number of elements related to "Kobe" suspected of infringement? After public opinion fermented, the local regulatory authority of Guizhou Liquor responded that "verification is underway". On April 24, the "Guizhou Liquor" account posted a video, but the response was evasive.
Titanium media APP query found that the top video of Guizhou Kobe Liquor to promote products was no longer visible.
The company responded: The champions did not charge any fees
Searching for "Guizhou Kobe Liquor" on the Douyin platform, the profile page of the account reads: "Have you ever seen the street scene of Los Angeles at 4 o'clock in the morning? Someone must win, why can't that person be me? If one day you forget to work hard, listen to me tell his story! Kobe Sauce Wine, pay tribute to the legend, youth will never come to an end!"
(Screenshot from Guizhou Liquor Social Platform Video)
At present, the Guizhou Kobe Liquor Sauce Liquor account has released a number of videos, which have received 62,000 likes and more than 6,000 fans.
It is worth noting that many of the videos posted by the account were recorded by several world champions, including speed skating junior world champion Lin Xue, sanda world champion Lin Huimin, and famous gymnast Zhou Xinyu.
Regarding the platform of the world champion, netizens have said, "I don't understand". Naturally, these world champions are also speculated to be the spokespersons of Guizhou Kobe Liquor.
On April 24, Guizhou Kobe Liquor released a clarification video, in which a person named "Lao Yu" said, "Kobe Liquor did not invite any champion endorsement, we just invited a few champion friends to help record a simple video, out of respect for the legendary superstar, out of recognition of the Mamba spirit, out of help to friends, these champions did not charge Kobe Liquor any fees." ”
However, Guizhou Kobe Liquor did not explain much about the behavior of touching porcelain Kobe. Titanium Media APP noticed that the videos related to the promotion of alcohol products by Guizhou Kobe Liquor have been taken off the shelves, and only a few videos recorded by champions are left in the works column.
The company has applied for the registration of a number of "Kobe" related trademarks
It's Kobe Bryant again, and it's the world championship platform, what is the origin of this company?
According to the national enterprise credit information publicity system, Guizhou Kobe Liquor was established in August 2023 with a registered capital of 10 million yuan, and the legal representative, executive director and general manager is Yu Yongyang.
According to Tianyancha, the company's shareholding structure is very simple, because Yongyang and Yu Haiyang hold 99% and 1% of the shares respectively. According to the company's investigation, the two also worked in a number of companies in Jiangsu Province.
It is worth noting that Tianyancha's intellectual property information shows that from September 13, 2023 to December 20, 2023, Guizhou Kebi Liquor has applied for the registration of "KEBI", "Kemanbiba", "Mankobabi" and figurative trademarks, and the international classification is liquor, of which the status of "KEBI" and figurative trademarks is the preliminary examination announcement, and the rest of the trademark applications are under rejection review.
(Source: Tianyancha)
Titanium media APP found in the China Trademark Network that some different fonts of the word "Kobe" and pictures containing the word "Kobe" have been registered as trademarks, and the national enterprise credit information publicity system also shows that there are not a few companies whose names contain the word "Kobe".
However, according to the Provisions on Several Issues Concerning the Trial of Administrative Cases Involving the Granting and Confirmation of Trademark Rights, the act of applying for registration of the names of public figures in the political, economic, cultural, religious, ethnic and other fields as trademarks is classified as "other adverse effects". At present, many people in the legal field believe that if Guizhou Kobe Liquor uses the name "Kobe" for commercial activities without authorization, it may constitute infringement. Just like the previous "Jordan trademark dispute".
However, according to reports, Guizhou Liquor claims that all its qualifications are compliant and legal, the company is not a sports category, but a food category, and the company's industrial and commercial registration, including intellectual property rights, is compliant and legal.
But this obviously could not convince the majority of netizens, and at present, on social platforms, public opinion is almost unanimous that Guizhou Kobe Liquor is suspected of infringement. (This article was first published in Titanium Media APP, author|Yang Huan)