Sony sued Huawei. What do Japanese companies mind?

In recent years, several lawsuits against competing companies have been brought against Huawei. Now Japanese Sony has sued Huawei. A specific problem is in the popular Huawei Watch GT smart watch and its name in the European Union. Interestingly, the disputes began in 2016 and culminated in a lawsuit in August 2021.

Sony has sued Huawei over the GT trademark

According to LetsGoDigital, Huawei applied for a trademark for the words GT3, GT5, GT8 and GT10 with EUIPO, which stands for European Union Intellectual Property Office. During the trademark application process, you may any third party to object. The Japanese Sony did so for the first time in 2016. The reason for the objection is not that Sony has or is planning its own wearable electronics called GT.

The problem, according to Sony, is that the GT designation is related to the popular Gran Turismo racing series, which he has been developing since 1997 in his in-house Polyphony Digital studio and releases on a Sony PlayStation console. The seventh part of this series should be released next year. In other words Sony is seeking exclusive trademark rights for the “GT” trademark for its Gran Turismo.

In 2016, however, it failed with the objection, and it did the same in 2019 with the second objection. At that time, Huawei also released the Watch GT and Watch GT 2 on the market. Now there is more and more talk about the release of the next generation Huawei Watch GT3 and Sony is again trying to cancel the trademark. This time, however, she no longer filed an objection, but immediately sued Huawei.

Do you think Sony will succeed in court?

Sources: nl.letsgodigital.org, gizmochina.com