Thomas & Friends Was Jointly Protected on Three-dimensional Mark Right, Copyright, Unique Name of Goods with Certain Influence, and Right of Publicity

Recently, Yiwu People’s Court of Zhejiang Province ruled to protect Thomas & Friends in a case of trademark infringement, copyright infringement, and unfair competition.

Thomas & Friends was a world famous cartoon television series mainly based around railway engines that live on the Island of Sodor. The Plaintiff Gullane (Thomas) Limited holds the copyrights to those cartoon figures and registered the figures as three-dimensional marks in China.

The Defendants sold toys with the images of the above cartoon figures on various e-commerce platforms.

The Plaintiff brought a civil action before Yiwu People’s Court of Zhejiang Province against the Defendants for trademark infringement, copyright infringement, and unfair competition. The Court supported the Plaintiff’s claims and ordered the Defendant to stop the infringement and compensate the Plaintiff. In particular, the court held that the name “Thomas” is very famous on toys due to the Plaintiff’s use and amounts to a unique name of goods with certain influence, as prescribed in Article 6.1 of Law of the PRC against Unfair Competition. As to the names of other figures, the evidence is insufficient to establish that they constitute the unique name of goods with certain influence, but could be seen other identifiers with certain influence as prescribed in Article 6.4 of the Law of Anti-unfair Competition because they have acquired a certain recognition and reputation among children. Therefore, the Defendant’s use of those figure names also constitutes unfair competition. 

In China, the right of publicity has not been adopted by the law. Nevertheless, we can still seek to protect the relevant legal interests through some existing laws. This is a good example of protecting such interests through the Law of Anti-unfair Competition.