Amazon loses ‘AWS’ TM in China
An Amazon subsidiary, Amazon Connect Technology Services, has been hit with 76,723,000 RMB (11.9 million) after the Beijing Higher People’s Court found the company had infringed trademarks for Chinese cloud computing services.
According to a report in the National Law Review, the court found in favour of Chinese firm, Beijing Yanhuang Yingdong Technology Development, in a ruling published on December 30.
In July 2018, Yanhuang accused Amazon and its co-defendant, Beijing Sinnet Technology, of infringing its mark ‘AWS’.
China’s official trademark database showed that the company first registered ‘AWS’ as a mark in China in 2004, while Amazon registered ‘AWS’ with the smile logo in 2012 for its cloud-computing services, reported the Wall Street Journal.
Yanhuang owns several trademarks for ‘AWS’ including number 4249,189 for technical research, project research, and computer software; number 8967,031 for computer programmes; and number 8967,030 for computer database information systemisation.
The verdict comes as a blow for Amazon, as according to research firm IDC, its AWS platform was the fifth-biggest cloud provider in China with a market share of 7.2%.
Amazon had argued that the goods and services involved in the alleged infringement were neither the same nor similar to Yanhuang’s goods or services.
The court, however, concluded that the logo used for the alleged infringement was identical or similar to Yanhuang’s mark, and found that the evidence showed a relatively close relationship between the services covered by the trademarks and Amazon’s use of the trademarks.
According to the court, the evidence showed that in the Baidu search results for the keyword “AWS”, the “amazonaws.cn” website displayed the ‘AWS’ logo, and featured the wordings “AWS China Cloud Service” and “Amazon Cloud Service (AWS)” on the search results page.
Upon opening the “amazonaws.cn” website, the court found that the webpage used the ‘AWS’ logo alongside wordings such as “AWS Technology Summit 2018 China Station”, “AWS Cloud Computing”, “AWS Free Package”, “AWS Cloud Solutions”, “AWS Products”, and “AWS “Cloud products”.
The court also found that the “awschina” WeChat official account operated by Amazon used the ‘AWS’ and ‘AWS cloud computing’ logos. It also upheld Yanhuang’s objections to Amazon’s WeChat official account that displayed wordings including “Webinar AWS Getting Started, Easy to Start Your Cloud Computing Journey” and “Working with AWS, “Dancing with the Cloud”, “Offline Seminar AWS Cloud Computing Helps IT Innovation and Transformation Seminar”, “AWS Sales and Business Development” and other textual expressions involving “AWS” cloud computing.
It further held that the “amazonaws-china.com” website opened and operated by Amazon also highlighted the use of the ‘AWS’ logo, while the website had “AWS Product Services and Pricing”, “How to Pay for AWS”, “AWS Free Package” and other infringing expressions.
“The above facts are sufficient to prove that on the “awschina” WeChat official account and the “amazonaws-china.com” website, and the logos have played a role in identifying the source of goods or services and constitute trademark use,” stated the court.
Consequently, the court ordered Amazon to cease use of the trademarks, publish an apology and compensate Yanhuang.
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