Before Chinese companies fully establish themselves in foreign markets, they usually take care of formalities and register trademarks for their products. In practice, they rarely opt for using Cyrillic – they most often choose Latin letters or Chinese characters. However, in this particular case, the Chinese company Wenzhou Mingyu Knitting Co., Ltd. decided to take a different approach. It obtained registration for the word mark Клевер цвета (pronounced Klewer cweta) for goods in class 25, i.e., among other things, clothing and footwear. For a Polish reader, this name may sound exotic, and its literal meaning is “Clover color.” Experts suspect that it may have n an unfortunate attempt to transliterate the English phrase “Clever Color,” which would make more marketing sense. The problem is that in Russian, the word “клевер” (klewer) simply means the plant – clover, while the almost identical-sounding English word “clever” means someone who is clever or smart.
Although the Chinese manufacturer was not yet widely known, problems arose a year after its trademark was registered. A local entrepreneur, who owned the CLEVER WEAR brand, decided to challenge the registration. He argued that the “Клевер цвета” trademark was deceptively similar to his earlier trademarks. The main argument was that both marks essentially sounded the same. The complainant argued that the average consumer, upon hearing the name, would not notice the difference between the Russian word for a plant and the English word for clever. Moreover, he claimed that the Russian name of the Chinese company had no deeper meaning, so the customer would only remember the first word – “Klever”. The case went before the Chamber of Patent Disputes, where both parties had to prove their case.
The owner of the Chinese trademark has prepared a strong line of defense. They argued that although the words may sound similar phonetically, their meaning and spelling completely distinguish them:
– The Russian word, written in Cyrillic, immediately evokes the image of a blooming flower and nature.
– The English word “Clever” is associated with intelligence and modernity.
– Most modern consumers have a basic knowledge of English, so they can easily distinguish “clever clothes” from “colorful clover.”
To strengthen their argument, the company cited previous rulings, including a well-known case involving the words “legenda” and “legende.” The court ruled that mere similar sound was not enough to claim confusion. The current dispute is analogous: despite the phonetic similarity, the trademarks evoke completely different associations – one refers us to the world of nature and plants, and the other to the modern fashion industry.
After analyzing all the arguments, the Patent Dispute Chamber ruled in favor of the Chinese manufacturer. The officials determined that the use of different alphabets (Cyrillic and Latin) and the different styling of the inscriptions create sufficiently different visual impressions. However, what turned out to be most important was what happens in the customer’s mind: a clover is not the same as cleverness. The Russian entrepreneur’s appeal was dismissed, and the Chinese trademark remained valid. This case is an important lesson for anyone planning to register a trademark abroad – sometimes what seems like a linguistic mistake can become your strongest line of defense in a trademark dispute.
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