According to the China Judgment Document Network, on December 30, 2020, Ele.me affiliate Lazars Network Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. sued Ele.me Catering Management (Beijing) Co., Ltd. for trademark infringement. The first-instance civil court verdict was made public.

The court verdict showed that Ele.me should immediately change its business name, and the changed business name must not contain the same or similar words as "Ele.me", and compensate Ele.me 10,000 yuan.

Court verdict

The court ruled in accordance with Article 58 of the Trademark Law of the People’s Republic of China, Article 6 (4) of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People’s Republic of China, and Article 17 (3) as follows:

First, Ele.me shall immediately change its business name on the effective date of the judgment, and the changed business name shall not contain the same or similar words as "Ele.me";

Second, Hungry will compensate Lazars 10,000 yuan for the reasonable expenses of network technology within ten days from the effective date of the judgment;

Lazars:

"Hungry" clings to goodwill, causing public confusion

According to the Tianyancha APP, Lazars Network Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Lazars") is an operating company of Ele.me.

At the trial, Mr. Lazars said the company had founded Ele.me in 2008, a local lifestyle platform that specialises in online food delivery, new retail, instant delivery and the catering supply chain. Ele.me, the company’s core business, had grown over the years to reach 2,000 cities across the country by June 2017, with 1.30 million restaurants and 260 million users.

In order to protect the good reputation of its products and services and safeguard its legitimate rights and interests, the company has applied for the registration of numerous trademarks, covering categories of goods and services including Class 9, Class 35, Class 42, and Class 43.

The company said that after years of use and promotion, the "Ele.me" series of trademarks has gained a high reputation and influence in the food service field. "At the beginning of our company’s establishment, we chose the mobile client side application software as the platform for providing services. Our company’s’Ele.me ‘mobile application software was officially released as early as 2012, and as our company’s market share and scale continue to expand, the influence of our company’s trademark is also increasing."

However, the company found that "Hungry" used "Hungry", which is highly similar to the "Ele.me" trademark, as a business name registration, "with subjective malice to cling to our company’s goodwill. Their business name has caused confusion to the relevant public, and their behavior constitutes unfair competition."

Are you hungry?

The company name has been approved and registered according to law, but it has not actually operated

However, Ele.me argued in court that the company’s business name was approved and registered in accordance with the law, and that the company did not actually operate after registration. The company pointed out that the "do" of "Ele.me" is different from the "do" of "Ele.me". The pronunciation is also different, and the glyph is different, which does not constitute a similarity. Therefore, the company asked to dismiss all of Lazars’ claims.

Why is the company named "Hungry"? To this end, the Red Star Capital Bureau called the company today. However, when the other party knew the purpose of the visit, they hung up the phone.

Tianyancha APP shows that hungry was established in December 23, 2016, the registered capital is 1 million RMB, the registered address is Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone, Beijing, its industry belongs to the business service industry, business license registration business scope includes catering management, sales of handicrafts, edible agricultural products, daily necessities, electronic products, machinery and equipment.

The court inquiry found that Shan Lijun, the legal representative of Ele.me, served as the legal representative of 100 companies, some of which contained high-profile logos such as "Citi", "Standard Chartered" and "Alibaba Cloud" in their corporate names.

In response to the above situation, Shan Lijun did not provide a reasonable explanation for this during the trial, only indicating that none of the above companies were actually operating and that they did not actually contribute capital.

Judgment:

Compensation for Zaras 10,000 yuan, "Are you hungry" has been changed twice

In this regard, the court held that the series of trademarks in this case were registered first, and the defendant’s font number "Hungry" was very similar in shape, pronunciation and meaning to the plaintiff’s registered trademark, so it should be recognized as a similar logo. The defendant registered "Hungry", which was very similar to the plaintiff’s registered trademark, as its registered corporate name, with obvious subjective malice, which was objectively prone to market confusion and constituted unfair competition.

Red Star Capital Bureau noted that the judgment was handed down on May 29 last year, and on September 8, 2020, Ele.me changed its name to "Ele.me Catering Management (Beijing) Co., Ltd." and on November 19, 2020, it was renamed "Beijing Yushanfang Staple Food Kitchen Co., Ltd.".

　　Xinhua News Agency, Taiyuan, April 12th Title: The chaos at the bottom of the gym: hairdressers and chefs turned into coaches. The male coach recognized more than a dozen students as "dry sisters"

　　Xinhua News Agency "Xinhua Viewpoint" reporters Ma Xiaoyuan, Liu Yangtao and Gao Jianfei

　　Levis Yang, born in 1980s, was taken to the gym by a friend, and a coach took the initiative to pull him to do a set of high-intensity "physical fitness tests". Levis Yang felt very uncomfortable. The coach added fuel to the fire by saying that he was in poor health, worse than a 50-year-old man, and must start fitness at once. Levis Yang was fooled into buying a 5000-yuan private education course.

　　"Xinhua Viewpoint" reporters visited first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai and found that in order to attract consumers to buy classes with cards, some gyms are full of routines, which is hard to prevent; The annual card fee is thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan, and the price of private education is higher.

　　The male coach recognized a dozen students as "dry sisters" and was fined for eating Chili peppers if he failed to finish his performance.

　　"Beauty, handsome boy, get to know about fitness!" Walking in the city street, many people have met the staff in the gym to distribute advertising leaflets. With the popularity of fitness, the price of some gyms has also risen.

　　Song Mingchao, born in 1990s, started his fitness journey two years ago. "Suddenly, I feel that people around me are starting to exercise. When we meet, we don’t meet and talk about how many times we have practiced this week, what actions we practice, and what supplements we eat." On social platforms such as Weibo and Tik Tok, there are not a few fitness "online celebrity" with more than one million fans.

　　In recent ten years, the number of gymnasiums in China has exploded. Statistics from the State Sports General Administration show that the total number of gymnasiums in China has exceeded 100,000 in 2019.

　　With the increasingly fierce competition, gyms try their best to attract people. A fitness instructor told an example he had witnessed: when a coach promoted a course, a female student refused on the grounds of "no money, I will buy it next time". The coach insisted that "it doesn’t matter if you don’t have money, you can bet something". Finally, the female student’s wedding ring was put down, which provoked the female student’s husband to make a big scene.

　　On platforms such as Dianping.com, many netizens described the experience of "being forced to order": "I was forced to buy a course by the coach, and two muscular men blocked the aisle, which made me afraid to leave, and my attitude was extremely bad." "Being sandwiched between two coaches, two people with a red face and a white face, and finally spending two months’ salary to buy classes."

　　The reporter learned that most gym coaches are responsible for sales tasks, and sales performance is directly related to the coach’s income. Some gyms will also charge the coach a "deposit", which will be confiscated if the performance is not completed. There are also gym regulations, and those who fail to achieve performance will be punished for eating peppers, mustard, lemons, and even being insulted and shaved.

　　"In the past, the training for coaches only taught technology, but now the sales skills have been put in." Liu Jin, a senior practitioner, said, "From reception to transaction, what to say and do is a set of assembly-line operations, just to make customers unable to refuse and increase sales."

　　Insiders confide that in order to retain customers, gyms will also use some "hidden rules". For example, male members are arranged for female coaches, and female members are arranged for young male coaches. Some gyms even encourage coaches to "play emotional cards" and "protect students like falling in love".

　　A coach told reporters: "A male coach recognized a dozen students as ‘ Dry sister ’ There are also coaches who are responsive to customers, chatting, eating and shopping … …”

　　Hairdressers and chefs become coaches, and fitness becomes harmful.

　　Zhang Xiaochao, who once hired a personal trainer in a gym in Shijiazhuang, said that when the card was handled, the coach talked nonsense and arranged a detailed training plan. After the card was handled, it was perfunctory.

　　"At first, the coach took the initiative to ask you for a class appointment. Later, you have to take the initiative to find him. If you don’t find him, you don’t care about you. It gives people the feeling that you can’t come." "I said that every time I finished practicing, I would relax myself. Later, every time I finished practicing, I said that the next member came, no matter what."

　　In the current fitness market, private education is popular. However, the reporter found that the entry threshold of fitness coaches is low, and quite a few coaches are employed after two or three months of training, and some even "crash in one week".

　　"Seeing that fitness instructors earn more money, many people have entered the stadium." Li Xingran, an insider in the fitness industry, said that some coaches may have been hairdressers and chefs a month or two ago, while others were selling in gyms and handing out leaflets on the street. Once there is a shortage of people in the store, they will "catch ducks on the shelves" and change clothes after simple training to serve as coaches to bring customers.

　　A gym operator admits that there are 11 coaches in his gym, only 4 of them have received relatively professional training, and the rest are non-professional. After a simple training, they will be employed for one or two months. "Now more than half of the people in the industry can be said to be crash coaches. There are very few truly professional fitness coaches, and quality coaches are even more scarce."

　　The reporter consulted some gyms as candidates. Some gyms have made it clear that even if they have no foundation, they can apply for membership consultants first, and learn research while accumulating customers. "There are many qualification certificates in the market, which are very easy to test."

　　The reporter found that there are a large number of coach training institutions in the market, and they can win multiple qualification certificates by paying one or two thousand yuan and focusing on training for two or three months. The quality of these trainings is uneven. A gym operator said that he gave a written test to job seekers with qualification certificates, and took the most basic fitness knowledge, but most of them couldn’t even reach the passing mark. "The training is relatively watery."

　　According to insiders, the lack of professionalism of coaches will bring hidden dangers to the safety of bodybuilders, which may cause knee meniscus injury, muscle strain, lumbar disc herniation and other injuries.

　　Chloe Wang, a citizen of Taiyuan, told the reporter that he had trained bench press under the guidance of a private tutor before. "It’s 10 kilograms heavier than what I usually practice. After practicing for a while, my arm feels uncomfortable. I didn’t care at the time, but this place will still hurt intermittently after two or three years. The doctor said it was probably a sports injury at that time. "

　　There are also individual fitness instructors with low quality who personally infringe on consumers. Last year, an employee of a fitness club in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, cut the crotch of her pants while stretching the muscles of Ms. Wang, a customer, and was finally sentenced to administrative detention on the 15th on suspicion of indecency.

　　Make the fitness industry more "healthy"

　　"In recent years, the fitness industry has achieved explosive growth, and various chaos has also appeared." Yan Sihai, general manager of fitness platform company CHINAFIT, said, "At present, the industry has shown signs of entering an adjustment period, and more and more people are beginning to realize that if they want to develop for a long time, they must change their living methods."

　　Some experts believe that in order to ensure the healthy and orderly development of the fitness industry and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, it is necessary to improve relevant laws and regulations, strengthen supervision and strengthen industry self-discipline.

　　In order to promote the healthy development of the fitness industry, some places began to explore relevant practices. Since the beginning of this year, Shanghai, Beijing and other places have successively issued model texts of service contracts in the fitness industry, among which the "7-day cooling-off period for fitness membership cards" has attracted much attention.

　　Zhao Zhanling, a lawyer of Beijing Zhilin Law Firm, and other experts said that overall, the relevant norms still lag behind the current development of the fitness industry, and the legislature and relevant functional departments should improve them as soon as possible.

　　Strengthening industry self-discipline has also become the consensus of many people in the industry. Mao Zhenming, a professor at the School of Physical Education and Sports of Beijing Normal University, suggested that the relevant departments should encourage the establishment and development of fitness industry associations, build industry consensus through industry associations, and formulate industry rules, such as setting standards and thresholds for employment, clarifying industry service norms, and establishing a "blacklist" of employees and institutions, so as to standardize corporate behavior and create a healthy competitive environment and consumption environment.

　　In view of the low industry threshold and the shortage of talents, people in the industry suggest that relevant departments and industry associations should accelerate the establishment of more professional and effective fitness instructor training standards and coach qualification certification system to ensure that fitness instructors have corresponding professional qualities. In addition, physical education colleges should increase the training of special talents in the field of social fitness, and consider setting up social fitness majors to meet the needs of people in the fitness industry.　　

　　Yan Sihai and other people in the industry said that in order to overcome the current shortcomings, traditional gymnasiums must change their business concepts and business models, strengthen their service awareness, create excellent course content and continuously enhance their core competitiveness.

　　In addition, industry insiders and experts also remind consumers to stay awake and spend rationally in the face of dazzling courses and possible sales routines in the gym; When one’s own rights and interests are infringed, one should enhance the awareness of rights protection and learn to use legal weapons to safeguard one’s legitimate rights and interests.

　　On December 27th, Xiaohongshu Beauty released "2023 Beauty Inspiration Inventory". Emotional "crazy" explosion, online beauty and mutual assistance, "lazy" copying homework, and beautiful long-term persistence have become the four major beauty trends of Xiaohongshu this year.

　　This year, the number of little red book skin care notes increased by nearly 90% year-on-year, and the number of beauty notes increased by nearly 70% year-on-year. The strong user base and high-quality content precipitation have made Xiaohongshu a target of beauty trend. Behind the four major trends, Xiao Hongshu’s consistent friendly and mutual assistance and sincere sharing of community genes, as well as the increasingly subdivided and differentiated "planting grass" strategy, are reflected.

　　The knowledge of beauty is vast, but the little red book provides you with a one-click copy of the beauty method. This year, on the little red book, countless users pressed the acceleration button for the road to beauty by "copying homework lazily". After the hot trends such as "early C and late A", the skin care formula of "early B and late A, early P and late R" jointly initiated by @ Harvard Yige -Dr. Jeff and @ Wang Wang Ai Skin Care Department of Chemistry provided a gentler and more accurate new skin care solution for users with acne muscles and sensitive muscles. The annual release of related notes exceeds 1.1 million, and the exposure exceeds 14 billion.

　　It is no longer difficult for ten thousand people to transform and help each other and become beautiful. In the past year, "online beauty and mutual help" has become one of the hottest beauty care trends in Little Red Books. Whether it’s Fiona Fang’s face or long face, light face or thick face, as long as you send out a note of persuasion and transformation, users on Little Red Book will always patiently guide online to help everyone discover their new possibilities. In 2023, the number of notes related to # Listening to Advice and Changing Makeup increased by over 370% year on year, and the exposure increased by over 500% year on year. In addition, more and more college students are brave in the beauty circle and actively express that Xiaohongshu has taken the first step to become a blogger. Eight-day makeup and college students’ wearing have become hot topics, and the number of beauty writers of the student party has increased by over 170% year-on-year.

　　In Little Red Book, in the past year, hundreds of bloggers actively participated in the offline teaching & makeup modification activity initiated by Little Red Book Beauty, and spontaneously provided suggestions and inspiration for netizens to improve their beauty and help them find more styles that suit them. Their participation just shows the community atmosphere of online beauty and mutual assistance in Little Red Book.

　　Return to rational consumption and explore more cost-effective beauty-changing schemes. In 2023, users of Little Red Book will pursue "beautiful long-term". In the field of skin care, people are pursuing more accurate efficacy value, and Light medical cosmetology has gradually become an important part of advanced skin care for skin care professionals. The annual release of related notes exceeds 550,000, and the exposure is as high as 6 billion. When purchasing beauty care products, more and more users began to pay attention to the long-term value of products, and the concept of "expensive replacement" quietly became popular. The annual release of related notes exceeded 15,000, and the exposure exceeded 200 million.

　　In the process of beauty and skin care, there is also an "emotional" madness ". This year, in the use of beauty and skin care, in addition to external changes, people also feel extra pleasant experience and emotional value. The "Relaxation Skin Care" initiated by @ Yi Nengjing promoted the ritual skin care craze, and the release of notes increased by 110% year-on-year. The pursuit of individuality and the use of makeup to create "identity" have become the "daily makeup" of users of little red books, with more than 700,000 notes published and 17 billion exposures.

　　In Xiaohongshu, beauty is not exclusive to bloggers. Everyone can express "beauty" boldly and confidently, and be seen, replied and interacted by others. Sincerely share and help each other’s community genes, life-oriented and scene-based operation methods, so that users of Little Red Book are willing to share their experiences of beauty improvement and strive to explore ideas of beauty improvement. "Good-looking", "Politely asking the price" and "squatting for follow-up" … The sharing and comments of boasting heroes and grass lovers have gathered into a diversified, rich and human-oriented beauty trend content, and every expression of beauty has echoes here.

　　This year, Xiaohongshu also saw a lot of beautiful bloggers who sincerely shared. @ 京京京京京, @ 京京 CHARR and others were awarded the "annual official activity help group" and actively participated in online and offline makeup changes in the official interaction initiated by Beauty Potato in 2023; @ Love durian, @ Anqi and others were awarded the "annual strength blogger help group", with an annual increase of over 200,000 in the field of beauty and skin care; @ cc, who loves spicy food, and Aunt Yao, who studies makeup, were awarded the "New Blogger Help Group of the Year", with an annual increase of over 100,000, and the notes on creating beauty and skin care accounted for 60% or more of the total annual notes.

　　Behind the beauty trend is people’s understanding and exploration of beauty. In Little Red Book, people find beauty in daily life, show beauty in life, and are sincere, human and have real experiences. Every sharing and discussion in Little Red Book reflects users’ positive attitude towards life.

　　From early C to late A to early P to late R, from cut-off eye makeup to e-person travel makeup, the latest fashion and the hottest beauty trend all grow up in Xiaohongshu. Bloggers explore innovative ways of playing, users actively plant grass to learn, and officials maintain the community ecology … Little Red Book has always reached new heights with thousands of users. In December 2023, Xiaohongshu Beauty also launched the 2023 Red Makeup Award, inviting users to recall the moment of "beauty". By reviewing the annual makeup, perfume and skin care experience in the past year, we can discover and create a steady stream of beauty care inspiration.