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The years-long dispute over the "Red Bull" trademark has not yet stopped.

On July 31, Tianshi Group, the founder of the beverage brand Red Bull, issued a statement saying that "Huabin Red Bull" is still banned from sale. The first-instance judgment made by the Changsha Intermediate People's Court of Hunan Province has not yet taken effect and is not enforceable. Tianshi Group will appeal in accordance with the law to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests. At the same time, in response to the suspected procedural violations and other illegal acts in this case, Tianshi Group will report and provide feedback to the relevant departments in accordance with the law based on the clues it has.

The day before, Red Bull Vitamin Drink Co., Ltd., a joint venture under the Reignwood Group, issued a statement on its official WeChat account, saying that in 2021, Thai Tianshi initiated a lawsuit against Changsha Huaxia Sugar and Wine Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Sugar and Wine Company), a partner in the Chinese Red Bull industry chain, with the intention of obstructing and disrupting the legitimate business of Chinese Red Bull's partners by means of litigation on the grounds of infringement of trademark rights. On July 29, 2024, the civil judgment of the Changsha Intermediate People's Court of Hunan Province ((2021) Xiang 01 Minchu 564) ruled on the case and rejected all the claims of Thai Tianshi.

Red Bull Vitamin Drink Co., Ltd. said that the judgment confirmed the authenticity and legality of the relevant facts of the long-term agreements such as the 50-year "Agreement" signed by Tianshi Company and Red Bull Vitamin Drink Co., Ltd. in 1995 and the 40-year "Trademark Use Rights Contract" signed in 1998. The Changsha Intermediate People's Court held that "Tianshi Company currently has no sufficient and effective evidence to prove that Red Bull Company has infringed Tianshi Company's trademark rights, so its claim that Red Bull Company's subordinate distributor Tangjiu Company has infringed the trademark rights in this case is insufficient and this court does not support it."

Tianshi Group stated that in December 2020, the final and effective judgment of the Supreme People's Court has clearly confirmed that the "Red Bull" series of trademarks belong to Tianshi Group. Tianshi Group's trademark use license for Red Bull Vitamin Beverage Co., Ltd. expired on October 6, 2016. The ownership of the "Red Bull" trademark is stable and clear.

The defendant, Tangjiu Company, is the largest distributor of Huabin Group in Hunan Province. According to media reports, Tangjiu Company has cooperated with Red Bull Vitamin Drink Co., Ltd. since 2003, and the annual sales of Red Bull Vitamin Functional Drink exceeds 200 million yuan.

Specifically in this case, Tianshi Group sued Sugar and Wine Company and applied for behavioral preservation in May 2021. The Changsha Intermediate People's Court made a behavioral preservation ruling that month, requiring Sugar and Wine Company to immediately stop selling infringing Red Bull products until the effective judgment of this case is executed. On June 15, 2021, Sugar and Wine Company was dissatisfied with the preservation ruling and filed a reconsideration with the Changsha Intermediate People's Court. On June 12, 2023, the Changsha Intermediate People's Court rejected its reconsideration application. Tianshi Group emphasized that the behavioral preservation is still in effect, and Sugar and Wine Company is still prohibited from selling "Red Bull Vitamin Functional Drinks".

Tianshi Group said that since 2021, the Zhejiang High Court, Jilin High Court, Heilongjiang High Court and courts in many places across the country have made first-instance judgments on the infringement of Huabin Group and its upstream and downstream affiliates, unanimously determining that the relevant defendants infringed Tianshi Group's exclusive right to the Red Bull trademark. At the same time, one judgment has come into effect, and the cumulative amount of compensation has reached nearly 600 million yuan. In June 2024, the second instance of the trademark infringement lawsuit against the joint venture and Huabin Factory has been completed in the Supreme People's Court, and has now entered the final stage before the verdict.

According to public reports, in the 1970s, the founder of Thailand's well-known food and beverage company Tianshi Group, Thai-Chinese Xu Shubiao, developed the Red Bull beverage. In 1993, he established the first Red Bull factory in China, Hainan Red Bull Beverage Co., Ltd., in Hainan, his father's birthplace. He also used the Chinese name "Red Bull" for the first time in China, and Red Bull thus entered the Chinese market.

According to the official website of the Reignwood Group, Red Bull was introduced to China by the Reignwood Group in the 1990s and has been ranked first in the Chinese functional beverage market for 20 years.

According to media reports, in 1995, Xu Shubiao granted the China operating rights of Tianshi Red Bull to Yan Bin, the founder of the Huabin Group. After Xu Shubiao passed away in 2012, his son Xu Xinxiong took over Tianshi Company and sued several factories, sales companies and even distributors under the Huabin Group in court in 2016 for "infringement of the exclusive right to use a registered trademark" and "unfair competition."

Tianshi Company believes that the cooperation period between the two parties is 20 years, and "several trademark licensing contracts filed with the Trademark Office indicate that Tianshi Company's trademark license period for the joint venture will end on October 6, 2016." Based on this, Tianshi Company asked the factories under the Reignwood Group to stop using the "Red Bull" trademark and compensate for economic losses, while Reignwood insisted that Xu Shubiao had signed an agreement with Yan Bin when he was alive, and the agreement stipulated that the authorization period between the two parties was 50 years.

According to the official website, the FMCG business of Reignwood Group mainly includes five brands, namely Red Bull, Fruit Power, Vita Coco, free energy drink brand Warhorse and high-end imported VOSS, but the other four brands are not as well-known as Red Bull. According to media reports, Red Bull has become a super single product of Reignwood Group with an annual sales of 20 billion yuan. In the first quarter of this year, China Red Bull achieved a good start. As of the end of April, its cumulative industrial output has exceeded 60 billion cans.