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Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. announces that the lawsuit filed against four Chinese companies including the motorcycle manufacturer Zhejiang Huatian Industry Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "Zhejiang Huatian") of Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province (present name Zhejiang Lingyu Vehicle Industry Co., Ltd.) for trademark infringement regarding Yamaha Motor trademarks including 雅馬哈 and YAMAHA filed in October 2002 at the Jiangsu Higher People's Court and closed with a judgment of the Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China on June 5, 2007, has now reached full conclusion with the final payment of compensation dictated by the Supreme Court decision. |
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Today, the final payment of the RMB 8,300,440.43 (125,185,276 yen) specified in the Supreme Court decision has been received, thus concluding the case in accordance with Yamaha Motor's original claims. |
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The June 5, 2007, judgment of the Supreme Court upholds the following decisions of the Jiangsu Higher People's Court that supported in essence all of our claims. Because of two-level judgment system adopted by China, the judgment became final. The judgment ordered the following: |
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(1) |
For Zhejiang Huatian, Taizhou Jiaji Motorcycle Distribution Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "Taizhou Jiaji") and Taizhou Huatian Motorcycle Distribution Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "Taizhou Huatian") to stop infringing the trademarks; |
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(2) |
For the three companies to publish an apology in "摩托車商情" (Motuoche Shangqing) magazine＊; |
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(3) |
For Zhejiang Huatian to pay compensation to the amount of RMB 8,300,440.43, of which Taizhou Jiaji and Taizhou Huatian are to be jointly and severally liable for RMB 8,227,977.03, and RMB 72,463.4 in compensation, respectively. |
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Of these three obligations, (1) and (2) were previously fulfilled, and with today's receipt of payment from the accused companies of the compensation specified in (3), this case had effectively reached its conclusion. |
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In this case, a company named "Nippon Yamaha Co., Ltd." established and registered in Japan in 2000, entered into a Trademark License Agreement with Zhejiang Huatian (name at the time Taizhou Huatian Motorcycle Co., Ltd.). Under that agreement, Zhejiang Huatian was licensed to use "Nippon YAMAHA Co., Ltd." and other similar characters on motorcycles it produced in China. |
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Yamaha Motor hopes that this lawsuit will serve as a useful reference somehow to other enterprises confronted with similar trademark infringements.
For our part, Yamaha Motor will continuously respond to infringement of intellectual property rights in resolute attitude.
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＊Motuoche Shangqing is a motorcycle magazine published in China. |
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