Trademark Infringement and Unfair Competition Case of Counterfeiting Well-Known Trade Dress｜Guangzhou Huatang Food Co., Ltd. v. Sichuan XX Technology Co., Ltd.

Case Overview

This landmark intellectual property enforcement case marks the first full-chain judicial protection of product trade dress for the time-honored Guangdong brand “Guangshi Pineapple Beer”. It covers two core legal relationships: trademark infringement and unfair competition via counterfeiting well-known trade dress, targeting the prevalent free-riding phenomenon in the fast-moving consumer beverage industry, where infringers copy the overall product appearance while making minor detailed modifications.

Rights Holder and Brand FoundationGuangzhou Huatang Food Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Huatang Company”) has inherited the “Guangshi” series trademarks and brand rights of the original Guangzhou Brewery through equity transfer and asset assignment. Founded in the 1970s, “Guangshi Pineapple Beer” has been accredited as a Time-Honored Brand of Guangdong, Guangzhou Souvenir and Greater Bay Area Well-Known Brand. It has won numerous honors including the Monde Selection Gold Award and Famous Guangdong Food Brand. Through decades of national media promotion and massive cross-platform sales on Tmall, JD.com and Pinduoduo (with hundreds of thousands of unit sales for single products), its exclusive canned trade dress — featuring a yellow can body, oval pineapple main pattern, yellow-green triangular pulp and symmetrical pineapple leaves — has formed a stable market identification feature and become an iconic packaging design of Lingnan popular beverages. Huatang Company owns multiple registered pineapple graphic trademarks including No. 1329159, No. 11931366 and No. 11931500, designated for Class 32 goods covering beer and fruit-flavored beverages.

Infringing Party and Infringing ConductSichuan XX Technology Co., Ltd. registered trademarks including “Shujun”, “Beirunwei” and “Bingxuewei”. Since 2023, it has commissioned Chongqing XX Can Making Company to produce and print cans for three pineapple beer products, and subsequently launched the “Kadingnuo Pineapple Beer” in cooperation with Sichuan XX Supply Chain Company. All four products were sold offline in supermarkets across Sichuan-Chongqing and Central China regions, as well as on major e-commerce platforms nationwide. Among them, the three products branded “Shujun”, “Beirunwei” and “Bingxuewei” feature highly similar overall color matching, core pineapple visual composition and triangular pulp layout to the classic Guangshi trade dress, with only trivial modifications in leaf quantity, product name text and miniature pineapple patterns on the edges. The “Kadingnuo” product only adopts a similar yellow background color with significantly different main structural patterns. Although the defendant issued a product recall notice in September 2024, infringing inventory products continued to be sold online and offline until 2025. The defendant commissioned the production of over one million cans merely for the “Beirunwei” product.

Rights Enforcement ProcessHuatang Company filed a lawsuit with the Chengdu Intermediate People’s Court, claiming that the three defendants constituted trademark infringement and unfair competition by counterfeiting well-known trade dress, and claiming total compensation of RMB 5.1 million for economic losses and reasonable enforcement expenses. The first-instance court confirmed that the three accused products constituted trademark infringement and unfair competition, ordering the defendant to cease sales, destroy infringing canned inventory and pay compensation of RMB 1.65 million. Dissatisfied with the judgment, both Huatang Company and the defendant filed appeals. The Sichuan Higher People’s Court rejected all appeals and upheld the original ruling. This case represents the first effective judicial judgment confirming independent judicial protection of the product trade dress of the nearly 90-year-old “Guangshi” brand.

Key Case Difficulties

Difficulty 1: Judicial Recognition of “Certain Influence” for Time-Honored Brand Trade Dress (Core Breakthrough of the Case)In previous enforcement cases for time-honored brands, trade dress composed of combined trademarks, colors and layouts was often denied independent protection due to inseparable composite elements. The defendant argued that yellow can bodies, pineapple graphics and triangular pulp elements were generic designs in the beverage industry and thus not exclusive protectable elements. It also claimed that Guangshi’s brand influence was mainly concentrated in South China with insufficient popularity in the Sichuan-Chongqing region, disqualifying the trade dress for exclusive protection. The core difficulty lies in breaking through the defendant’s defenses of “regional limitation” and “generic element attribute”. Based on decades of brand honors, cross-regional promotion records, massive online sales data and historical enforcement records, the court independently recognized the overall trade dress as a protectable object under the Anti-Unfair Competition Law and clarified the boundary between trademark rights and trade dress rights.

Difficulty 2: Application of Judgment Standards for Peripheral Infringement via “Overall Imitation and Partial Fine-tuning”The defendant claimed that differentiated designs in leaf quantity, product name text and edge patterns constituted substantial distinctions and negated trade dress similarity. The judicial difficulty was to distinguish trivial modifications from substantive differences, and establish the adjudication rule of overall visual priority and consumer isolated observation, confirming that the defendant’s conduct of “copying core visual effects while modifying minor details” constituted typical free-riding on the goodwill of time-honored brands.

Difficulty 3: Determination of Duplicate Claims for Trademark Infringement and Trade Dress Unfair CompetitionThe defendant defended that the core graphic of the disputed trade dress was exactly the registered trademark of Huatang Company, and simultaneous claims for trademark infringement and trade dress infringement constituted duplicate compensation claims. The key difficulty was to distinguish the protection scope between registered trademarks (single graphic elements) and overall trade dress (comprehensive appearance combining background color, composition, text and layout). The two rights differ in source, infringement constitution and damage consequences, without overlapping protection scope.

Difficulty 4: Evidential Dilemma in Discretion of Statutory CompensationBoth parties failed to fully prove the actual losses of the obligee or the illegal profits of the infringer. The defendant argued that high compensation was unreasonable due to its low net profit margin and no market entry in South China. The court needed to comprehensively discretion the compensation amount by integrating multiple factors including time-honored brand premium, annual infringement production capacity (hundreds of thousands of tons of beverage output), omni-channel sales scale and subjective malice of intentional brand free-riding.

Judgment Result

Final Judgment of First and Second Instance｜Case No.: (2026) Chuan Zhi Min Zhong No. 34The Sichuan Higher People’s Court rejected all appeals filed by both Guangzhou Huatang Company and the Sichuan defendant, and upheld the original judgment:

1. Infringement Cessation LiabilityThe defendant shall immediately cease the production and sales of the three infringing pineapple beer products (“Shujun”, “Beirunwei”, “Bingxuewei”) that violate the plaintiff’s registered trademark rights and well-known trade dress rights of Guangshi.

2. Destruction of Infringing ProductsThe defendant shall destroy 17,116 unshipped 500ml empty cans printed with infringing Beirunwei trade dress stored in the cooperative can-making factory within a prescribed time limit to prevent further market infringement.

3. Compensation LiabilityThe defendant shall compensate Huatang Company for economic losses of RMB 1.6 million and reasonable rights enforcement expenses of RMB 50,000 (including attorney fees and notarization fees).

4. Litigation Cost AllocationThe litigation fees of the first and second instances shall be borne proportionally by both parties.

Typical Case Significance

(1) Milestone for Time-Honored Brand IP Protection: Historic Judicial Confirmation of Guangshi Pineapple Beer Trade Dress ProtectionThis case marks the first valid judicial ruling granting independent protection to the overall canned product trade dress of the nearly 90-year-old “Guangshi” time-honored brand under the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, breaking the long-term limitation that time-honored brands can only enforce rights through registered trademarks. The judgment clarifies the constitutive requirements of influential trade dress for time-honored brands: long-term historical inheritance, authoritative brand honors, cross-regional brand promotion, massive market sales and stable consumer recognition. Even if composed of generic colors and basic geometric elements, the overall trade dress formed by long-term continuous use and stable public identification shall be recognized as “trade dress with certain influence” and entitled to exclusive legal protection. It also establishes a dual protection system for time-honored brands: registered trademarks protect single graphic elements, while trade dress protects the comprehensive combined appearance including background color, overall outline, color matching and element layout, filling the long-standing judicial precedent gap of trade dress protection for the Guangshi brand.

(2) Unifying Adjudication Standards for “Fine-tuning Imitation” in the Beverage Industry and Curbing Brand Free-RidingThe case establishes the core judgment rule of prioritizing overall visual effect and ignoring trivial partial differences for trade dress similarity. Where infringers only modify leaf quantity, minor text and edge patterns while highly replicating the core can tone, main pineapple pattern and pulp layout, such conduct shall constitute unfair competition as long as it is likely to cause ordinary consumers to confuse product sources or recognize irrelevant association. The ruling effectively cracks down on the gray infringing practice of “minor modification equals non-infringement” in the beverage industry and provides unified judicial reference for rights enforcement of time-honored beverage brands nationwide.

(3) Refining Compensation Discretion Rules for Time-Honored Brand Enforcement and Strengthening Judicial ProtectionThe court determines statutory compensation by comprehensively considering multiple factors including time-honored brand premium, large-scale infringing production capacity, cross-regional omni-channel sales, subjective malice of intentional brand free-riding, obligee’s enforcement costs and industry gross profit margin. Even without accurate calculation of actual losses or illegal profits, the court may reasonably raise the compensation amount based on the intrinsic value of time-honored brands, implementing the punitive protection orientation for malicious trademark infringement stipulated in the Trademark Law and boosting the confidence of time-honored brands in rights protection.

(4) Setting a Judicial Model for Full-Category IP Protection of Lingnan Time-Honored BrandsBased on the typical case of a classic Guangdong fruit beverage brand, this judgment clarifies the recognition rules for rights inheritance of time-honored brands. It confirms that parent companies can legally inherit trade dress rights of time-honored brands by submitting equity confirmation documents, trademark assignment certificates and actual production and operation evidence, solving the evidential difficulties of IP ownership confirmation in state-owned enterprise restructuring and equity transfer scenarios. It provides a complete litigation and enforcement reference for the trade dress confirmation and anti-counterfeiting protection of numerous China Time-Honored and Guangdong Time-Honored brands in Guangzhou and the broader Guangdong region.