After six years of negotiations, the largest intellectual property battle in China's instant food industry has been settled with an agreement under which both sides must relinquish rights to the disputed trademark.

The largest potato vermicelli producer in China, Baijia Food Co in Chengdu, last week launched its new trademark Baijia Chenji to replace its old Baijia trademark, which was partially the source of the prolonged dispute.

In 2007, Baijia found that the Zhengzhou-based instant noodle maker Baixiang Food Co unveiled its instant potato vermicelli, using a package similar to Baijia's patented design.

It filed a lawsuit against Baixiang in the intermediate court of Weifang, Shandong province in November that year, asking for 2.2 million yuan ($361,240) in compensation. But it withdrew the suit the next year because the competitor soon took its products off shelves nationwide.

Nearly at the same time, Baixiang launched legal actions against Baijia in Zhengzhou, claiming the trademark on the Chengdu company's products had violated its own.

Actually both Baijia and Baixiang are recognized as well-known trademarks, but Baijia's trademark was designed as two Chinese characters in a horizontal line while on its package they were written vertically - which looked like "Baixiang".

The verdict by the Higher People's Court of Henan province in November 2008 ruled that Baijia should stop using the vertically designed trademark, but the company decided to challenge the ruling and appealed to the supreme court the next year.

Mediated by the supreme court, the two companies reached reconciliation in 2011, according to which Baijia would stop using the trademark from June 10, 2012 - both vertically and horizontally designed. It would apply for a new trademark Baijia Chenji to name its products.

Baixiang was also forbidden from using the Baijia trademark or any other trademark containing "Baijia", on its instant food.

Ren Wei, assistant to the chairman of Baijia said that the two companies had fought each other in five lawsuits in different cities over the past six years.

"Now we both realized that the lawsuits have occupied too much of our attention, so we decided to end it all peacefully," he told Orient Today, a local newspaper in Henan.

But he added that although the company has launched a new trademark, it is still the exclusive owner of the "Baijia" name after all.

Food industry expert Gao Jianfeng told Chengdu Business News that the reconciliation does not mean an end of market competition between the two companies.

zhangzhao@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 11/20/2013 page17)