According to the news on November 4, Beijing Cotton Field Textile Co., Ltd. (Beijing "MUJI") and MUJI (Shanghai) Commercial Co., Ltd., Liangpin Co., Ltd. (Japan's "MUJI") and other related commercial defamation disputes were announced.
According to the documents, the plaintiff, Cotton Field Company, claimed that the two defendants, including The Good Products Project Co., Ltd., fabricated and disseminated false information about cotton field companies to "preemptively register" their "MUJI" trademarks, causing the relevant public to mistakenly recognize Cotton Tian Company's "MUJI" towels, quilts and other commodities as cottage goods, causing losses to Miantian Company, and its behavior constituted commercial slander.
At trial, the court held that the public statements issued by the two defendants, including the Liangpin Project Co., Ltd., objectively contradicted the facts, and thus actually derogated the goodwill of the cotton field company.
The plaintiff's claim that the defendant constituted a commercial defamation act had a factual and legal basis. The final judgment resulted that the defendant Liangpin Project Co., Ltd. and MUJI (Shanghai) Commercial Co., Ltd. jointly compensated the plaintiff, Beijing Cotton Field Textile Co., Ltd., for economic losses and expenses totaling 400,000 yuan to stop the infringement.
On April 26 this year, the case of "Beijing Cotton Field Textile Co., Ltd. v. MUJI Commercial Defamation of Unfair Competition" was heard in public this morning at the Chaoyang Court in Beijing.
Beijing Cotton Field Company claimed that on November 10, 2019, defendant 1 Liangpin Project co., Ltd. and defendant 2 MUJI Co., Ltd. issued a statement saying that within the scope of Chinese mainland, the "MUJI" trademark was preemptively registered by other companies in some commodity categories such as cloth, towels, and bedspreads.
However, in 2014 and 2015, Projects Ltd. and MUJI misused the "MUJI" trademark in these categories of goods.
In this regard, the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court found that the use of the trademark "MUJI" on individually designed blankets by Liangpin Project Co., Ltd. and MUJI Liangpin Company infringed the trademark rights of Beijing Cotton Field Textile Co., Ltd. The verdict was not pronounced in court in this case.
