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Recently, according to the official account of the Tianxin District people's Court in Changsha City, Tesla sued Tesla for trademark and copyright infringement of used cars in August last year. The court ruled in Tesla's favor, and the first instance ruled that the defendant immediately stopped infringing upon the plaintiff's exclusive right to use the registered trademark, immediately stopped infringing upon the plaintiff's copyright, immediately stopped the unfair competition behavior of false propaganda, stopped using the enterprise name with the word "Tesla", and at the same time compensated Tesla for economic losses and reasonable rights protection expenses of 300000 yuan, and rejected the plaintiff's other claims.

Review of related events: in August last year, a Tesla used car company in Changsha was sued by Tesla company for trademark infringement and unfair competition due to the use of logos such as "Tesla capital letters" and "Tesla used car" and "TESILA" in its store facade, publicity posters and interior decoration walls. Tesla said: Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. is not only the right holder of trademarks such as "Tesla" and "TESLA", but also the copyright owner of special Tesla's LOGO art works.

In this regard, Tesla proposed to the used car company to immediately stop infringing upon the exclusive right of trademark, copyright and unfair competition, and stop using the name of "Tesla used car". Litigation requests such as no longer using the brand name "Tesla", compensation for economic losses and expenses for safeguarding rights, and so on.

From the pictures of Tesla used car company released by Tianxin District people's Court, we can see that Tesla LOGO is used in many places within the company. Tesla pointed out that the defendant's extensive use of "Tesla", "TESILA" and other logos and publicity posters on the doors and shops of the shop easily caused misunderstanding to customers and made them mistakenly think that Tesla had a specific cooperation or relationship with the store, infringing on Tesla's exclusive right and copyright of registered trademark, and constituting unfair competition.

In response to the case, the court held that the defendant used the same or similar logo as the Tesla trademark in the store front and interior decoration, and the affiliated company of the defendant's head office had applied for a large number of trademarks that were the same or similar to the Tesla trademark, and their awareness of the Tesla brand was significantly higher than that of ordinary enterprises. The defendant's use of the logo involved in the case has played a role in identifying the source of the service and belongs to trademark use. In addition, the used car company is basically the same as Tesla in terms of service content, consumption objects, sales methods, channels and so on, which can easily lead to confusion among the relevant public. And the store uses the relevant words of "the only Tesla used car chain franchise in the country" to promote, which is easy to be misunderstood. It will lead to confusion or misunderstanding among consumers and constitute unfair competition.

For this matter, many netizens have expressed support. Some netizens said: the result of such a verdict is still good. I hope everyone can take it as a warning. Another netizen said: there is nothing wrong with Tesla's approach. With regard to this matter, some legal personages have pointed out that the behavior of the second-hand store uses other people's registered trademarks as enterprise publicity, which can easily mislead the public and constitute acts of unfair competition, it shall be dealt with in accordance with the Anti-unfair Competition Law. According to the law, operators are not allowed to use the same or similar marks of commodity names, packaging and decoration that have a certain influence with others, carry out acts of confusion, and lead people to mistake them for other people's goods or have specific connections with others.

Relevant data show that the Tesla second-hand car company under complaint was established in July 2021. The company's business scope includes used car sales, motor vehicle charging sales, auto parts wholesale, new energy vehicle sales, auto parts research and development, and so on. The company has been shown to be cancelled. Interestingly, the company has applied for a number of graphic trademarks similar to Tesla logo, which are currently in an invalid state. In addition, the company has also applied for a number of "Tesla used car" trademarks, and some trademarks have been registered.

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