TECO Trademark case U.K. TESCO vs. TECO Electric & Machinery Co., Ltd.; Administrative Court adjudicated TECO Electric & Machinery losing the case
E020110X2 Feb. 2002（E30）
There is a trademark war among TECO Electric & Machinery Co., Ltd., the Intellectual Property Office (“IPO”) and a U.K.-based company TESCO, which aggressively enters into the warehousing market of this county. TECO Electric & Machinery considered that the “TESCO” trademark registration filed by TESCO and granted by the IPO in 1997 has infringed on its trademark right. However, the Taipei Administrative Court recently adjudicated that TECO Electric & Machinery loses the case.
TESCO is the biggest retailer in the U.K. and have operating bases in the world. In recent years, TESCO have been aggressively to enter into the Taiwanese market. TESCO indicated that it comes out on top of the 500 global famous companies and its warehouse stores and products are distributed all over the world. On the other hand, TECO Electric & Machinery is a local manufacturer engaged in the business of various electric machinery and its service scope is different from TESCO’s. Therefore, the consumers are unlikely to confuse the “TESCO” trademark.
The Taipei Administrative Court held that “TESCO” and “TECO” only differ in one English letter, but the trademark of TECO Electric & Machinery consists of Chinese characters “東元”, a foreign word “TECO” and a triangle device and is different from the trademark “TESCO” which simply consists of English letters. Accordingly, the consumers will not misidentify the two trademarks. Besides, the consumers usually identify the products of TECO Electric & Machinery based on the Chinese characters “東元” and they are less impressed by the word “TECO” as compared with the characters “東元.”
Source: Economic Daily News 01/10/2002
