Two SouFun the latest round of wrestling with the issue of trademark ownership of "house search"

Summary: Check the latest quotes are also called SouFun, February 13, a less well-known soufun (sofang.com) to another NYSE listed company SouFun (Soufun.com,sfun.nyse) to the Beijing high courtyard of the dock. This is two soufun around the search house trademark

View the latest quotes

Also called SouFun, February 13, a less well-known soufun (sofang.com) to another NYSE listed company SouFun (Soufun.com,sfun.nyse) to the Beijing high courtyard of the dock.

This is the two soufun around the "search house" trademark ownership of the latest round of wrestling, the former think that they took the lead in applying for "house search" advertising trademarks, the latter considered this a malicious registration, the two sides of the tangle lasted more than 7 years, has not been seen.

The less well-known SouFun was established in 1995 by the Beijing Road Jie Investment Consulting Service Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Tao Jie") all. 1995, Douges opened the "Beijing Real Estate Internet", "Search House" to become one of the channels.

Since 1999, Douges has registered a series of www.sofang.com and "search room" related domain name, official operation SouFun, in the history, SouFun operating longer.

However, the contradiction between the two is not the sharing of the same site name, but who has the right to have the Chinese "search house" advertising trademark. For two sites that also operate real estate Internet advertising, the ownership of "house search" advertising is crucial.

"The first financial daily" obtained the relevant information, September 2003, Douges began to apply for "house search Sofang" trademark, but in 2006 after the trademark first-instance publicity, by the same hope that the Chinese "search House" trademark of the listed companies SouFun, the latter at the time of the application of the English trademark name " Search House SouFun ".

An independent third party lawyer told the first financial daily reporter, as the two companies apply for the same 35 types of advertising trademarks, and the Chinese part is exactly the same, are "search room", the English part is very similar, so two of the trademark is difficult to apply for success at the same time, there must be a veto, This is also the reason that the listed company SouFun to dodger the SouFun to apply for trademark.

Listed companies SouFun the objection is: Douges application of "Search house Sofang" trademark in the use of services constitute similar, belong to malicious registration. The first round of confrontation between the two sides thereupon in the State Administration for Industry and Commerce Trademark Office (hereinafter referred to as "Trademark Office") launched.

However, in October 2009, the trademark Office ruled that the objections made by the listed company SouFun were not tenable and dismissed its objection application. The SouFun Battle of the lesser known Jefferson.

But the controversy did not end, one months later, the listed company SouFun against the ruling, to the National Trademark Review Committee (hereinafter referred to as the "commercial judges") to initiate a review, the matter has come to a turning point. 3 years later, in October 2012, the decision of the business judge supported the SouFun request of the listed company, and the result was reversed.

The commercial judges believe that the listed company SouFun "house search" trademark prior to use, and make it have a certain impact, the behavior of the road is a registered. Since then, the dispute between the two sides was accepted by Beijing's first Intermediate People's Court, Beijing, a Chinese court to make the first-instance ruling, maintaining the commercial judges of the objection review decision. The balance of victory began to tilt to the SouFun of the listed company.

In the end, a desperate fight, the SouFun owned by the Supreme People's Court of Beijing on February 13 appealed to the abolition of the first-instance ruling of a Beijing-China court.

Dodger said to reporters: "The business judges of the facts are completely reversed." "Jie Shi owned by the SouFun more than 10 years ago has made 36 categories of real estate and 38 types of network communications trademark ownership, and for more than 10 years the site has been continuously operating and use, malicious registration of 35 types of advertising trademark reasons do not exist."

The soufun of listed companies declined to comment, saying the controversy had been fully disclosed in the annual reports of listed companies.

Data show that September 17, 2010, SouFun on the New York Stock Exchange, prior to listing, in July 2005, it received from the French Juno classified media of 200 million Yuan investment and September 2006 from the Australian telecom Telstra investment, 2 billion yuan, Both were among the biggest private-equity investments in China's internet history. The trademark dispute occurs before the IPO financing stage.

The company's total revenue for 2013 was $637.4 million, up 48.1% from a year earlier, according to a 2013-year earnings report released by SouFun, a company that now soufun more than 6 billion dollars.