Core tip: To protect practical artworks, it is necessary to meet the standards of art works.

Civil Judgment of the Second Intermediate people's court of Shanghai

(2008) Hu Er Zhong Min Wu (Zhi) Chu Zi No. 187

The plaintiff, Inter Ikea Systems B.V.

Legal representative: Maria Gabrielle Olsson Skalin, Managing Director.

Entrusted agent Zhu Miaochun, a lawyer from Shanghai Zhu Miaochun Law Firm.

Entrusted agent Jin Manli, a lawyer from Liaoning Dingsheng Law Firm.

Defendant Taizhou Zhongtian Plastic Industry Co., Ltd.

Legal representative Chen, General Manager.

Entrusted agent Zhou Xiangen, a lawyer from Zhejiang Liqun Law Firm.

Entrusted agent Zhu Meicong, a lawyer from Zhejiang Liqun Law Firm.

On June 27, 2008, the Court accepted the case of infringement of copyright between the plaintiff Intel IKEA System Co., Ltd. and the defendant Taizhou Zhongtian Plastic Industry Co., Ltd., and formed a Judicial panel to hear it according to law. The defendant raised objections to jurisdiction during the defense period, and the court ruled on August 6, 2008 to dismiss their objection to jurisdiction. The defendant objected and filed an appeal. The High people's court made a final ruling on September 8, 2008 to reject the appeal and maintain the original ruling. On January 16, 2009 and March 25, 2009, the Japanese court held a public hearing on this case. The plaintiff entrusted agents Zhu Miaochun and Jin Manli, while the defendant entrusted agents Zhou Xiangen and Zhu Meicong to attend the lawsuit in court. The trial of this case has now been concluded.

The plaintiff, Internet IKEA Systems Co., Ltd., filed a lawsuit stating that the plaintiff's company was founded in 1943 and is the world's largest furniture retail company, with over 190 specialized stores established in 31 countries and regions. The Mammut series of children's furniture was designed by designer Morten Kjelstrup and fashion designer Allan Ö stgaard on behalf of the plaintiff under the guidance of the plaintiff. In 1994, the Mamote children's chair won the Swedish "Furniture of the Year" award, and the Mamote series of products were published in product catalogs and multiple books many years ago. A few years ago, the plaintiff discovered that the defendant, without the plaintiff's permission, had plagiarized the design of the plaintiff's copyrighted Mamote series works, produced and sold child chairs and benches with product models ZTY-522, ZTY-525, ZTY-525A, and ZTY525-B, and displayed infringing products on their company website. The infringement continues to this day. As early as 2004, the plaintiff had commissioned lawyers to send multiple letters to the defendant requesting them to stop their infringing behavior. However, the defendant ignored them and instead applied for a design patent for the infringing design, which was later deemed invalid by the examination agency. The plaintiff believes that the defendant's production, sales, and website promotion activities have infringed on the plaintiff's copyright and caused significant economic losses to the plaintiff. Request for a decree: 1. The defendant shall immediately cease all acts that infringe upon the copyright of the plaintiff's Mamote series of works; 2. The defendant immediately takes back the infringing products that have been put into the market, destroys the inventory of infringing products, production molds, and impressions, and destroys packaging and promotional materials containing infringing products; 3. The defendant immediately deleted the infringing product images displayed on the website www.ztpc.cc; 4. The defendant shall compensate the plaintiff with an economic loss of RMB 500000, including reasonable expenses; 5. The defendant published statements on the Xinmin Evening News and Qianjiang Evening News about his infringement, eliminating the impact.

The defendant Taizhou Zhongtian Plastic Industry Co., Ltd. argues that: 1. The plaintiff does not have the qualification of the litigation subject in this case; 2. The plaintiff has no evidence to prove that they have copyright in the Mamote series of products. Even if the plaintiff has relevant rights, this series of products is not a practical art work, only a practical industrial product, because it does not have the characteristics of originality and artistry that practical art should have; 3. Prior to the completion of the plaintiff's product design, there were furniture that were basically consistent with their products in the animation works; 4. The products produced by the defendant were independently created by the defendant's designers, and there is no infringement of the copyright of others. In summary, the court is requested to dismiss the plaintiff's lawsuit request.

After trial, this court has found that:

The plaintiff is a limited liability company incorporated in the Kingdom of the Netherlands on October 31, 1983. The outsider, Ikea of Sweden Aktiebolag, is a Swedish company registered on November 21, 1960.

The Mammut children's chair and stool in this case are disputed by two designers, Morten Kjelstrup and Allan Ö stgaard (hereinafter referred to as M.K+A φ) Employed to create on February 6, 1991, and officially delivered the work to IKEA in January 1992. According to the "Declaration on Intellectual Property Ownership Issues" signed by the plaintiff and Swedish IKEA, as well as M.K+A φ The "Declaration on the Copyright of Mammut Works" published on June 6, 2008, stated that the relevant copyright of Mammut's works was transferred to the plaintiff on February 8, 1992. Magazines such as "Art Family" (1994) and "Popular Design" (1995) have also published and introduced the controversial Mammut children's chairs and benches.

On June 10, 2006, the outsider Huang purchased three children's benches and two children's chairs at Room 1508, Building 11, Lane 187, Qingjian Road, Shanghai. After payment, he received an invoice, a business card, and a brochure. In addition, Huang also took 18 photos of the shopping location and the children's benches and chairs he purchased. The above process was carried out under the supervision of Notary Public Huang Xin and Notary Public Ding Zhenhua from the Shanghai Notary Public Office. The Shanghai Notary Public Office produced the (2006) Hu Zheng Zi No. 7549 Notary Certificate. The above invoice is stamped with the invoice special seal of "Taizhou Zhongtian Plastic Industry Co., Ltd.", the business card is printed with words such as "Taizhou Zhongtian Plastic Industry Co., Ltd., Li Wei Shanghai Regional Manager", and the brochure is printed with words such as "Zhongtian Plastic Industry" and "ZTPC".

In addition, the plaintiff also provided a sales invoice and a delivery list for purchasing Amu Tong Bench and Amu Tong Chair under the name of "Shanghai Yongguan Trading Co., Ltd.", which was also stamped with the invoice special seal of "Taizhou Zhongtian Plastic Industry Co., Ltd.".

On April 10, 2008, Li Moumou, the agent of Gaoluoyun (Beijing) Intellectual Property Agency Co., Ltd., conducted evidence preservation and printed a total of 34 pages of relevant content on the www.ztpc.cc website with notaries at the Beijing Chang'an Notary Office located at the Capital Building, No. 1 Chaoyangmen North Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing. The Beijing Chang'an Notary Office produced the (2008) Beijing Chang'an Neijing Zheng Zi No. 2664 notarial certificate. According to the notarized certificate, the above-mentioned website has uploaded 15 models of products accused by the plaintiff of infringement: ZTT-326, ZTT-322, ZTT-325, ZTY-534, ZTY-533, ZTY-537, ZTY-525S, ZTY-525M, ZTY-525L, ZTY-542, ZTY-536, ZTY-541, ZTY-538, ZTY-521, ZTY-535.

Chen Moumou, the legal representative of the defendant, applied to the China National Intellectual Property Administration for five design patents on February 10, 2004, October 25, 2004 and August 8, 2005, with the names of chair (Amutong), chair (ZTY-521), stool (ZTY-537), stool (ZTY-536) and chair (ZTY-538), and the patent numbers of 200430019946. X, 200430083416.1, 200430083418.0, 200430083419.5 and 200530114174.2 respectively. Among them, the design patent No. 200430019946. X was declared invalid by the Patent Reexamination Board of the China National Intellectual Property Administration on August 30, 2006.

After comparison, among the fifteen models of products accused of infringement on the www.ztpc.cc website, the overall shape of the children's stool (ZTY-525S, ZTY-525M, ZTY-525L) and the plaintiff's Mammut children's stool is basically the same. The children's stool (ZTY-534, ZTY-533, ZTY-537, ZTY-536, ZTY-541, ZTT-322, ZTT-325, ZTT-326, ZTY-542) differs from the plaintiff's Mammut children's stool in the shape of the stool surface, But the shape of the legs of the stool is basically the same, and the two form a similar overall structure. The children's chairs (ZTY-521, ZTY-538, ZTY-535) differ from the plaintiff's Mammut children's chair in terms of the shape of the chair back, but the shape of the chair legs is basically the same, and the overall composition of the two is similar. In addition, after comparison, the defendant's product Amutong Children's Bench and Children's Chair purchased by the plaintiff through notarization are basically the same in overall appearance as Mammut Children's Bench and Children's Chair.

The above facts are supported by notarized and authenticated statements, liability agreements, magazine books, product brochures, design sketches, notarized documents, physical evidence, search results on the website of the Intellectual Property Office, and the examination decision for invalidation requests submitted by the plaintiff, as well as the defense opinions of the plaintiff and the defendant, as well as the court's trial records and other evidence.

Our court believes that the main focus of controversy in this case is whether the Mammut children's chair and stool belong to practical art works protected by China's copyright law.

The plaintiff believes that the Mammut children's chair and stool are highly artistic and belong to the category of furniture, which is practical and protected by Chinese law. The defendant believes that the above children's chairs and benches cannot reach the height of artistic creation in terms of design, and are no different from other chairs at home and abroad. They are more concerned with the practical functional requirements of furniture, and therefore do not constitute practical works of art.

Our institute believes that practical art works refer to intellectual creations that have practicality, artistry, and meet the requirements of the composition of the work, that is, practical art works should have practicality, artistry, originality, and replicability. According to the relevant provisions of China's Copyright Law, practical art works belong to the category of art works and are protected by the Copyright Law. A work of fine arts refers to a plane or three-dimensional Plastic arts work of aesthetic significance composed of lines, colors or other forms, such as painting, calligraphy, sculpture, etc. Therefore, the artistry of practical art works must meet the minimum requirements for the artistry of the work in order to obtain protection under copyright law. The Mammut children's chair in this case is composed of three parts: the chair back, chair cushion, and chair legs. The chair back is composed of a trapezoidal solid wood and three rectangular wooden strips, with the upper trapezoidal solid wood occupying nearly half of the space of the entire chair back. The chair cushion is the basic structure of a general chair, and the chair legs are composed of four upright vertebrae, in a narrow upper and wide lower shape. The Mammut children's stool consists of two parts: the stool surface and the stool legs. The stool surface is a circular entity with equal height and shape, similar to a typical children's stool. The stool legs are four spindle shaped rods. Our court believes that the design points of the Mammut children's chair and stool in this case are mainly reflected in the design lines, but overall, they are not significantly different from ordinary children's chairs and benches in appearance. They belong to the relatively simple design of children's chairs and benches, and do not meet the minimum requirements for artistic composition, so they do not belong to the category of practical art works, Not protected by China's copyright law. Therefore, the defendant's aforementioned actions do not constitute an infringement of the plaintiff's copyright.

In conclusion, in accordance with Article 3 (4) of the Copyright Law of the China and Article 4 (8) of the Regulations for the Implementation of the Copyright Law of the China, the judgment is as follows:

Reject the plaintiff's lawsuit request from Intel IKEA Systems Co., Ltd.

The case acceptance fee is RMB 8800, which shall be borne by the plaintiff, Internet IKEA Systems Co., Ltd.

If the plaintiff Intel IKEA Systems Co., Ltd. is not satisfied with this judgment, the defendant Taizhou Zhongtian Plastic Industry Co., Ltd. may, within 30 days from the date of service of the judgment, submit an appeal petition to this court, and file duplicates according to the number of opposite parties, and appeal to the High people's court of Shanghai, China.

Chief Justice Li Guoquan

Acting Judge Xu Zhong

Acting Judge Hu Mi

August 22, 2009

Clerk Zhang Tingting

Attachment: Relevant Legal Provisions

1、 Copyright Law of the China

Article 3: The term "works" as used in this Law includes works of literature, art, natural sciences, social sciences, engineering technology, etc. created in the following forms:

（4） Art and architectural works;

2、 Regulations for the Implementation of the Copyright Law of the China

Article 4: The meaning of the following works in the Copyright Law and these Regulations:

（8） The term "works of fine arts" refers to the planar or three-dimensional Plastic arts works of aesthetic significance, such as paintings, calligraphy and sculptures, which are composed of lines, colors or other forms;