Johnson & Johnson, the world's fourth-largest drugmaker, became the second overseas company in a month to lose a trademark dispute in China, a nation where as many as nine in 10 of some branded products are fake.
A Beijing court ruled against the US company after a six-year legal battle with a Chinese company that used a brandname resembling one of its own, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Toyota Motor Corp last month lost an 11-month lawsuit against a rival that the Japanese automaker claimed copied its logo.
The ruling against New Brunswick, New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson comes after Premier Wen Jiabao (
Rampant piracy of overseas consumer goods, auto parts and software has fueled tensions over China's record trade surplus with the US, forecast to reach US$130 billion this year.
"China has come a long way in terms of intellectual property rights protection, but there's still a lot more to be done," said Walker Wallace, a lawyer with O'Melveny & Myers LLP in Shanghai.
US and European trade officials have criticized China for failing to boost lax protection of copyright and trademarks after the country joined the WTO in 2001.
Johnson & Johnson filed a suit against the State Administration for Industry and Commerce last May after the agency refused to revoke a trademark held by an unidentified Chinese company, Xinhua reported.
The private company, based in Wenzhou city in China's eastern Zhejiang province, registered the English language trademark "Careful" for its sanitary towel products in 1997, Xinhua said. Johnson & Johnson sells women's healthcare products under the "Carefree" brand.
Johnson & Johnson has appealed twice in the past six years to the agency to revoke the trademark, the report said.
The Chinese company exports to Europe and has registered its trademark in more than 10 countries, the report said.
The commerce administration's China Trade Mark Review and Adjudication Board ruled that the two trademarks were clearly different in pronunciation, formation and meaning, Xinhua said.
The US company may appeal to a higher court, the news agency quoted an unidentified lawyer representing Johnson & Johnson as saying.
Toyota on Nov. 24 lost a lawsuit against China's Geely Group Co (吉利), which it claimed used a logo on its Merrie cars that resembled the Japanese company's `T' marque.
The case, the first attempt by an overseas automaker to stop copying by domestic competitors, was closely watched by General Motors Corp, Volkswagen AG and Nissan Motor Co, which say their designs have also been copied by Chinese assemblers.
General Motors, the world's largest automaker, is investigating whether a US$5,800 minicar called the QQ made by SAIC Chery Automobile Co copies the design of its Spark, produced at a US$100 million joint venture with two Chinese partners.
Some overseas companies have won copyright cases in Chinese courts.
In February, Nike Inc won a trademark case against three clothing companies based in Zhejiang for unauthorized use of the "Nike" trademark.
In January, Lego A/S, the Danish maker of the namesake plastic toy building blocks, won a case in the Beijing High People's Court against a Chinese toymaker.
In the first 11 months of this year, Chinese courts handled 5,750 intellectual property lawsuits, an increase of 24.6 percent from the same period last year, Xinhua said.
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