The case of British luxury car maker Land Rover sues a top Chinese trademark watchdog over a trademark dispute with Chinese auto manufacturer Geely came to trial at the Beijing Municipal No.1 Intermediate People’s Court on March 17, and Ms. Xi Weiwei of Beijing Eastking IP Agent Company as the representative of Geely was present as a third party.

The case could be traced back to more than 10 years ago. Geely applied to the State Trademark Bureau for registering the “Luhu” (literally “land tiger” in Chinese) trademark in the automobile and motorcycle industries in 1999, and gained approval in 2001.

Land Rover requested the Trademark Appeal Board under the State Administration for Industry and Commerce to revoke the “Luhu” (陆虎)trademark registered by Geely in 2004, but the board rejected the appeal last year. Therefore, Land Rover brought the Trademark Appeal Board to court last August and asked judges to order the board to review its earlier decision.

Land Rover argues that Geely’s trademark register behavior is totally malicious and provides more than 40 media reports to testify they started to use “Luhu” (also the “land tiger” one) as their trademark for brand communication and media promotion in China from 1996. It also provides a copy of vehicle registration document from the related authority as evidence, but it won’t be admitted as it’s only a duplicate.

The Trademark Appeal Board and the third party Geely give the same argument in defense. They both claim that the evidences provided by Land Rover are all media reports, but not their purposed using of the “Luhu” trademark, nor their ads or event planning. The Trademark Appeal Board says that Land Rover can’t provide any advertising contracts or invoices to prove they were purposed advertising. Besides, Geely also contends that there are many translation versions for Land Rover, and the registered “Luhu” is only one of them. It’s just what Chinese media or car fans call it.

A Geely executive says after the trial that Geely planned to acquire Rover when Geely applied for registering the “Luhu” trademark, but their acquisition plan failed at last, while the trademark was registered successfully. Now the “Luhu” trademark is only used in motorcycles and parts, but not in automobiles, but Geely does not rule out the possibility of using the trademark for vehicles.