By King & Wood Mallesons’ Trademark Group
Recently, GreenTree Inn Hotel ("GreenTree"), an economy hotel chain that owns over 450 chain hotels in almost 150 cites in China, brought a lawsuit against a local hotel named "Green Home Business Hotel" ("Green Home"), which is located in the Yanchen City, Jiangsu Province, for the alleged trademark infringement and unfair competition. GreenTree’s mark in actual use, namely, , consists of three parts, an oak tree device and the English of "GreenTree Inn" in an eclipse and Chinese Tradename of the hotel "格林豪泰" below the eclipse. In fact, in the four-character Chinese Tradename of GreenTree, only the first two correspond to "Green" in sound and the latter two are irrelevant to the word "GreenTree Inn" in either sound or concept, which pronounce "Hao" and "Tai", meaning "Generous" and "Peaceful", respectively.Continue Reading “Green Home” Accused of Being Copycat of “GreenTree Inn”