Home & Garden Ltd. scores a victory against LehmanBrown

15^th December 2016, Beijing, the Beijing High Court rendered 3 judgments against LehmanBrown, an accountancy firm. The judgments stem from  a long dispute, which is part of a series of trademark disputes that have lasted for several years.

Representing Home & Garden at the Beijing High Court was Grace Wang of Lehman, Lee & Xu a leading law firm in the field of Intellectual Property. Mr Wang had the following comments to make:

I am glad that I achieved the outcome that my client was hoping for. I take a lot of professional pride in my work and I have worked very hard to make sure that justice has prevailed.

The Beijing High Court concluded that Home & Garden was the lawfully registered owner of the “雷博” trademarks in classes 42 and 16, and "LehmanBrown" trademark in class 42. All appeals brought and all evidence presented by Russell Brown and Zhou Han Brown, the shareholders of the Hong Kong Company that owns LehmanBrown, have been completely rebutted and found by the Chinese People's Courts as lacking, without merit and insufficient under Chinese laws.

Not now, nor since 2003, has the trademark LehmanBrown® been registered to Mr. or Mrs. Brown, their China based consulting wholly foreign owned enterprise ("WFOE"), or the Hong Kong Limited liability company that they own. Without any right to the disputed LehmanBrown® trademark, Russell Brown's consulting WFOE has, and continues to infringe upon Home & Garden's lawfully registered trademark and infringea upon the intellectual property rights of Home & Garden’s exclusive licensee, LehmanBrown CPA. LehmanBrown CPA was founded by five Chinese nationals who are fully certified public accountants.

The ongoing infringements may prove costly to Russell Brown and their consulting WFOE as under Chinese law the "Legal Representative" of a WFOE has personal, civil, and criminal liability for any wrong doings, including intellectual property infringement of the company, even beyond the scope of the registered capital of the WFOE.

While the trademark dispute has come to a clear and unappealable conclusion within the Chinese legal system, the continued infringement upon the trademark LehmanBrown® by Russell Brown, Chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in China, and his consulting WFOE leaves open the possibility of future legal action against him by Home & Garden, or even the public authorities for trademark infringement.

LEHMAN, LEE & XU is a licensed People’s Republic of China law firm. The Firm was founded in Shanghai in 1992 as one of the first private law firms in China.

While the business and regulatory environment for companies with Asian operations is constantly changing, LEHMAN, LEE & XU advises clients on IP rights, management and disputes all across China, Hong Kong, Macau, the Cayman Islands and Taiwan. We also operate in the developing markets of Mongolia and East Timor.

Our full-service legal team helps multinational companies manage their business in line with their global business objectives. If you have any question please feel free to contact us. We are always happy to discuss matters on a preliminary no-cost, no-commitment basis.

Resource | IPR Daily

Editor | Judy