There is an update on the packaging competition between the country's two major dairy companies. On 17 october, the jiangsu provincial high people's court issued a final judgement on an illegitimate dispute between ili and monoox. The court ruled that the use of pure milk from a “selected rangeland” of mono-cow for packaging and decorations that were highly similar to the ely's “golden order” constituted an undue competition. The second instance dismissed the appeals of both parties, upheld the judgement, ordered monroe to cease its unfair competition immediately and compensated ili for its economic losses and reasonable expenses totalling $5 million。
Criteria for the clarity of packaging for the second review
At the heart of the dispute was a “face bump” package. It is understood that in may 2024, elli brought mau qi to court on the grounds of unfair competition, considering that the dress of pure milk of the mau qi “chosen pasture” was similar to the packaging of pure milk of the golden order, which could easily cause confusion among consumers and constitute undue competition。
Ely's “goldard” milk product began in 2006 and was launched in august 2020 with a new “goldard” milk packaging by a professional design company, which created a visual style with both decorative and visible features through a well-designed combination of elements and colours. According to publicly available information, as of december 2023, the cumulative sales of this product amounted to tens of billions of yuan, representing about 10 per cent of the national liquid milk market。
In late 2023, the mong cow introduced “selected pasture” milk, which also included packagings of cows, pastures, greens, etc., which was of interest to elli. Of these, both products are coloured as "milk bottom + ink green elements" and the top left side is identical to the ink green bottom frame with white fonts. It is worth noting that the mono cattle do not feature the mono-cow main trademark on the front of the packaging, but are singled out in small text. In this regard, the mono-cow side states that elements such as green, cow and rangeland are commonly designed for dairy packaging。
A major focus of the dispute between the two sides was the prominent issue of packaging. In response to the issue of the prominence of packaging and decoration of the goods involved, the jiangsu provincial high people's court, in its second trial, referred to the fact that while the packaging and decoration of dairy milk is common to design elements such as cows, pastures, flowers and greens, it can produce different design styles and effects, such as the specific expression of the elements, how the elements are combined and organized, what colours are chosen and how they are combined, and not because the packaging and decoration of the goods involved contain common design elements, i. E. The packaging and decoration is not considered to be prominent or to have the effect of identifying the source of the goods。
At the same time, the division of the components of the packaging and decoration of the goods into separate statements of generality and the conclusion that the packaging and decoration of the goods claimed by ely lacked visibility are unfounded and rejected by the court。
Another focus is to judge whether it causes confusion among the public. In addition, the second instance judgement refers to the evidence provided by ili in the first instance and evidence provided in the second instance, reflecting the content published by the users of the main platforms, comments made by the netizens, which dealt with the confusion and misperception of the two commodities, indicating that confusion and error had actually occurred. The evidence provided by the mong cong ii trial only proves that confusion does not necessarily occur in certain circumstances, but cannot be used to deny the possibility of confusion. In particular, moose did not mark its high-profile "moon cow" trademark in a prominent position where the packaging and decoration of the goods served to identify the origin of the goods, and the approximation was sufficient to lead to confusion and misrecognition by the public concerned。
In the light of the above, the jiangsu provincial high people's court held that the first instance judgement found that the facts were clear and that the applicable law was correct and should be upheld, and rejected the appeal of ili and monja and upheld the sentence。
Ely works against the bull, and the gap widens
As a breast-milk giant, eli and monoox have been compared. In the financial statements of the first half of this year, ely received $61,777 million, an increase of 3. 49 per cent over the previous year, and achieved a net profit of $7. 2 billion, a decrease of 4. 39 per cent over the previous year, attributable to shareholders in listed companies. During the same period, the mong cong received $41,567 million, a decline of 6. 95 per cent over the same period and a net profit of $2,046 million over the same period, a decrease of 16. 4 per cent. As you can see, the difference is $20 billion。
According to the financial report, the main reason for the fall in the mau cow camp in the first half of the year was the poor performance of liquid milk. Liquid milk, the only falling plate in the first half of the year, earned $32,191. 7 million, a decrease of 11. 22 per cent compared with $36,261. 5 million in the first half of 2024, and a decrease in the share of total receipts from 81. 2 to 77. 4 per cent。
In addition to the main business, such as liquid milk, dairy companies have in recent years focused their efforts on the development of new products and increased research and development inputs in order to achieve a breakthrough in the division of the tracks. There is also a gap between the two countries in relation to r&d inputs. The cost of r & d in erie in the first half of this year was $380 million, an increase of 11. 4 per cent. Erie states that this was due to increased research pilot design costs. In 2024, erie spent 870 million yuan on r & d, representing 0. 75 per cent of the revenue received, an increase over the previous year; in 2024, mong cow invested 513 million yuan in r & d, representing 0. 6 per cent of income。
It is a matter of concern that before 2011 monopoly received higher revenues than elli. However, since then, elli had begun to work and had opened the gap with monoox. It is known that between 2017 and 2023, both mono and erie received more than $60 billion. In 2023, the ili battalion received $125,758 million, an increase of 6. 51 per cent over the same period, and the monopoly battalion received $98,62 billion, an increase of 2. 49 per cent over the same period. In 2024, camp ely received $115,393 million, up from $88,670 million in monopoly。
