Recently, the lawsuit filed by "Encounter Xiaomian" against "Yujian Xiaomian" for trademark infringement has sparked widespread discussion in society. Whether the case itself constitutes infringement varies among legal professionals. The exploration of the case itself is certainly important, but another question may be worth pondering: why does such a seemingly ordinary trademark rights protection behavior attract strong attention, and what are we worried about?

First of all, let's talk about the core principle of trademark law: the more unique a trademark is (the stronger its distinctiveness), the less public language resources it occupies, and the scope of trademark protection is usually larger. For example, words like "Haier" that have no original meaning and are entirely created by trademark owners are usually not used in other contexts, so once someone else uses them, it is easy to be identified as infringement. The trademark "Encounter Small Noodles" is formed by the combination of the general term "Encounter" and the food type "Small Noodles". These two words themselves (including their homophones) are commonly used in commercial environments, so higher standards need to be applied to determine infringement.

The merchant involved in the case used the "Yujian Xiaomian" logo, where "Yu" refers to the regional characteristics of Chongqing Xiaomian. Although "Yujian" and "Encounter" have similar pronunciations, their meanings are different. There is no standard answer to whether "Yujian Xiaomian" constitutes infringement, and there is also a certain degree of discretion for judges during the trial. However, compared to general trademarks, the determination that "Yujian Xiaomian" constitutes infringement should be stricter, and trademark owners should also be more cautious when initiating rights protection actions.

In addition, "encounter" and "small noodles" are common vocabulary, and trademark owners have already occupied more public language resources as a result. When others' business activities conflict with their trademarks, they should carefully judge whether their use is based on the use of public resources or an infringement of legitimate trademark rights.

The core purpose of trademark protection is to prevent intentional counterfeiting for profit, damage to reputation, free riding, and other behaviors, in order to maintain market order. As trademark owners of listed companies and large commercial entities, when their rights protection actions are against small and micro operators, they should further enhance their duty of prudence. Trademark law protects brand reputation and market order, rather than granting rights holders a monopoly on common vocabulary. Therefore, for harmless and harmless small and micro business activities, even if they objectively conflict with the trademark itself, a certain degree of tolerance should be given.

As a small street side shop, "Yujian Xiaomian" has a small store area, affordable prices, and limited customer base to surrounding residents. Its business scope, consumer group, and national chain "Encounter Xiaomian" are clearly distinguished, making it difficult to say that it has caused substantial damage to "Encounter Xiaomian" and also difficult to have a negative impact on the brand reputation. Even if "Encountering Xiaomian" is concerned that the long-term use of the other party will weaken its own trademark recognition, it can still adopt more gentle methods such as communicating first, requesting the small shop to adjust the sign or change the name, rather than directly taking tough measures such as demanding compensation or filing a lawsuit.

In addition, this case also highlights the issue of power imbalance in trademark rights protection. The bulk rights protection of large enterprises mostly relies on risk agency, which does not require any legal fees in the early stage. Even if they lose the case, they only need to bear a small amount of case acceptance fees, and the cost of rights protection is almost zero. Even if there is excessive protection of rights, it is rarely considered malicious litigation, and the legal risk is extremely low. On the other hand, ordinary merchants already have meager profits. Once sued, the time cost, lawyer fees, litigation risks, and potential compensation liabilities can become a burden that crushes their operations. Small and micro enterprises are naturally in a disadvantaged position when facing lawsuits from top enterprises. The trademark system should not become a tool for large enterprises to bully the weak. Trademark owners with market advantages should bear corresponding social responsibilities, restrain unnecessary litigation and rights protection, and avoid using institutional advantages to squeeze the living space of small and micro merchants.

When it comes to bulk rights protection, there is currently a worrying phenomenon: some entities have shown a tendency to use trademarks as profit-making tools and rights protection as business operations, which deviates from the legislative intention of encouraging legitimate business and regulating unfair competition in the Trademark Law. The law does not prohibit the concentrated crackdown on large-scale malicious counterfeiting and deliberate profit seeking businesses, and such mass rights protection is reasonable and justifiable. If we target small vendors who have no intention of counterfeiting for profit and have not caused substantial damage, and hold them accountable mainly through lawsuits, pressure, and mandatory licensing fees, it is essentially more like using institutional loopholes to monopolize public language resources and obtain excess profits, raising suspicions of abuse of power.

The exclusive right to use a trademark is never an unconstrained absolute right, and the exercise of rights should always bear in mind the boundaries of rights and the bottom line of good faith. When large enterprises engage in commercial rights protection, they should pay attention to distinguishing the nature of the behavior of small and micro merchants. For trademarks with weaker uniqueness, they should be cautious in their rights protection. Lawsuits and accountability should be based on the subjective and deliberate infringement of the other party, which has indeed caused consumer confusion and substantial losses, to avoid a one size fits all approach to rights protection that squeezes the already limited living space of small and micro merchants.