1、 The basic case is that a German company is the trademark owner of the three registered trademarks in the above picture (hereinafter referred to as the involved trademarks), and the involved trademarks have significant and high popularity in the clothing industry. Ai used the same logo as the involved trademark in his unauthorized Taobao store "XX Daigou" (hereinafter referred to as the involved store), which sells clothing. A German company has filed a lawsuit with Xiamen Intermediate People's Court, requesting that Ai and another defendant, Chen (shipper), be ordered to cease infringement and bear punitive damages of 1 million yuan for infringement liability. In the first trial, the defendant raised numerous doubts and asked the judge how the involved store operated. Ai did not provide a clear answer and stated that he still needed to verify. Afterwards, the Xiamen Intermediate People's Court, based on the plaintiff's application, retrieved the sales data of the involved store from the Taobao platform and organized various parties to conduct cross examination. During the cross examination process, Ai submitted evidence of his reduced liability regarding purchase costs and brushing orders in court, and disclosed that the actual operator of the store was Wu. The plaintiff then applied in court to add Wu as a co defendant and withdrew the lawsuit against the shipper Chen, demanding that Ai and Wu stop infringing and bear joint and several liability for punitive damages of 1 million yuan. In the second trial, both Ai and Wu argued that Ai lent her ID card to Wu to open the involved store, and that Wu was the actual operator of the involved store. Ai did not participate in the actual operation; Ai also submitted the "Disclaimer Agreement" signed with Wu in court with the intention of exemption from liability. 2、 The court ruled that the trademark in question has gained a high level of popularity after long-term use and promotion. Ai and Wu used the same trademark as the involved trademark on similar products and sold them, and used the word "genuine" in the product link, which is a counterfeit trademark and constitutes trademark infringement. In this case, regardless of whether Ai actually participated in the operation or not, his act of lending identity information to open the involved store provided convenience and assistance for Wu's trademark infringement, and constituted joint infringement with Wu. He should jointly bear the responsibility of stopping infringement and compensating for losses with Wu. The "Disclaimer Agreement" signed by Ai and Wu is an internal agreement between the two parties regarding their liability for infringement, and does not affect their joint and several liability in this case. The application of punitive damages requires compliance with the two statutory requirements of "intentional infringement" and "serious circumstances". In this case, if the infringement behavior of the two defendants meets the above requirements, punitive damages should be applied. Therefore, it is ruled that: 1. Defendants Ai and Wu immediately stop infringing on the trademark exclusive rights of the plaintiff's German company involved in the case, that is, immediately stop selling goods with the aforementioned registered trademark, and immediately remove the webpage information with the aforementioned registered trademark logo; 2、 Defendants Ai and Wu shall jointly compensate the plaintiff, a German company, with 960000 yuan and reasonable expenses of 40000 yuan for stopping infringement within ten days from the date of the judgment becoming legally effective. After the first instance verdict was announced, the defendant Wu appealed and reached a settlement during the transfer of the case for appeal. In the second instance procedure, Wu applied to withdraw the appeal, and the first instance verdict has come into effect. According to Article 1 of the "Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on the Application of Punitive Damages in the Trial of Civil Cases of Intellectual Property Infringement" (hereinafter referred to as the "Interpretation of Punitive Damages"), the application of punitive damages requires compliance with the two statutory requirements of "intentional infringement" and "serious circumstances". Article 3 of the "Interpretation of Punitive Damages" clearly defines the defendant's act of counterfeiting a registered trademark as one of the circumstances that constitute "intent". Therefore, there is no dispute in determining "intentional infringement" in this case, but the difficulty lies in determining "serious circumstances". Article 4 of the Interpretation on Punitive Damages stipulates that for the determination of serious infringement of intellectual property rights, the people's court shall comprehensively consider factors such as the means, frequency, duration, geographical scope, scale, consequences of the infringement, and the behavior of the infringer in the lawsuit. If the defendant has the following circumstances, the people's court may determine that the circumstances are serious: (1) After being administratively punished or held responsible by the court for infringement, the defendant commits the same or similar infringement behavior again; （2） Engaging in intellectual property infringement as a profession; （3） Falsifying, destroying, or concealing evidence of infringement; （4） Refusal to comply with the preservation ruling; （5） Infringement for profit or significant damage to the rights holder; （6） Infringement may endanger national security, public interests, or personal health; （7） Other circumstances that can be considered serious. The fourth article of the "Interpretation of Punitive Damages" by the judge explicitly considers the actions of the infringer in the lawsuit as a factor in determining the severity of the circumstances, and includes "forging, destroying, or concealing evidence of infringement" as one of the situations that can be determined as serious circumstances, and "other situations that can be determined as serious circumstances" as a fallback clause. Although the actions of the infringer in this case cannot be determined as "forging, destroying, or concealing evidence of infringement" in the lawsuit, their failure to truthfully state, overdue evidence submission, and evidence surprise attacks have caused delays in the lawsuit, objectively resulting in similar consequences to the aforementioned actions that hinder civil litigation; Taking into account factors such as the main business of the involved store selling infringing goods and significant profits, the effective judgment determines that this case belongs to "other circumstances that can be deemed serious", enriching the judicial practice of punitive damages and demonstrating the determination to resolutely crack down on malicious trademark infringement and litigation dishonesty. In addition, the effective judgment determined that regardless of whether Ai actually participated in the operation or not, his act of lending identity information to Wu to open a store constitutes joint infringement with Wu, and he should bear joint and several liability with Wu. The "Disclaimer Agreement" signed by both parties is an internal agreement and does not affect the assumption of external joint and several liability. On the one hand, it reminds the public to properly keep their personal identity information and not lend it out at will. On the other hand, it also warns infringers that "exemption agreements do not exempt liability" and do not have a mentality of taking chances. (New Society)