The battle over the Cabernet trademark has yet to be won as the State Administration for Industry and Commerce reconsidered its previous judgment made in June 2008 that the Cabernet trademark belonged to Yantai Chang Yu Group (SZSE: 000869).

The focus of the dispute was whether or not “解百纳” could be used as a trademark of a particular company. The three plaintiffs, COFCO Ltd, China Great Wall Wine Co. Ltd, and Sino-French Joint-Venture Dynasty Winery Ltd, all claimed that “解百纳” (the Chinese name for Cabernet) was a general name of a kind of grape wine and in no way should be used exclusively.
They also complained that Chang Yu's attempt to monopolize this name by using it as a trademark will bring a negative impact to the Chinese wine industry’s international image and will eventually weaken its competitiveness in the global market.
In response to the law suit, Chang Yu insisted that the name “解百纳”, meaning “taking all of the world” in Chinese, is not a transliteration of Cabernet, and the popularity of this name in the market by no means makes it a generic name.
Chang Yu’s wine labels wherein they used the name “解百纳” but without registration marks (i.e. R with a circle around) made it appear as if it were a generic name. Then, when other wine companies started labeling their products as “解百纳”, Chang Yu was slow to take action against them. As a result, “解百纳” became more known as a general product name rather than as a brand name, which eventually weakened Chang Yu’s brand equity.
A final decision has not yet been reached, but brands can learn from this story. They should be careful to choose a distinguished Chinese name for their brand that does not run the risk of turning into a generic name. Let’s see what will happen in the case of ChangYu.