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Holding the ChargeNow （即时充电 in Chinese） and its power-plug-shaped figure trademark lack of distinctiveness, Beijing High People's Court rejected the appeal from BMW in its final ruling recently.
BMW in August 2014 filed the relevant application for trademark registration, certified to be used in Class Four electricity products, but would see it rejected by the Trademark Office under the State Administration for Industry and Commerce in June 2015. The disgruntled BMW brought the case to the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board （TRAB） for reexamination, but would suffer one more setback in March 2016.
BMW then petitioned to Beijing IP Court.
The court handed BMW another defeat because it held that because the trademark in question is certified to be used in electricity products, its name lacks distinctiveness.
Unwilling to move on with its life, BMW took the case to Beijing High People's Court, arguing that the figure trademark consists of both Chinese and English in addition to an image, the public may recognize the source of the goods through seeing the trademark as a whole. The trademark, therefore, has the distinctiveness required for being a trademark.
The court held that the trademark in question is a combination made up of 即时充电 in Chinese, ChargeNow in English and a power-plug-shaped figure. Based on Chinese people's general knowledge of English and their reading habit, the ChargeNow may easily be read as charge it right now （Note:its literal meaning）。 The ChargeNow, 即时充电 and power-plug-shaped figure all directly shows their function and use. The public would neither recognize it a trademark nor associate it with the product provider. In this connection, the trademark in question should not be registered for lacking distinctiveness.
Accordingly, Beijing High rendered its final ruling against the Germany-based auto maker and upheld the first-instance decision.（by Wang Guohao）
（Editor Li Xingyi）
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