Recently, the People's Court of Haidian District of Beijing (hereinafter referred to as Haidian Court) made a judgment on the case of Beijing Qingda Houde Institute of Education Science and Technology (hereinafter referred to as Qingda Institute) v. Beijing Qingda Cloud Education Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Qingda Cloud Company), as well as Peking University for copyright infringement and unfair competition dispute, and ordered Qingda Cloud Company to compensate for the economic losses and reasonable expenses of Qingda Institute totaling 55,000 RMB.

Qingda Institute filed a lawsuit to Haidian Court, claiming it found that the course opening publicity sheet of "New Third Board Capital Operation Practical Class" produced by Qingda Cloud Company (hereinafter referred to as the accused course sheet) duplicated and copied its independently produced "Qingda Houde Business Administration and Innovation Business Executive Seminar" in terms of course content, format design, etc. (hereinafter referred to as the course sheet at issue), infringing the copyright of Qingda Institute on the course opening sheet at issue. In addition, the use of the abbreviated name of "Qingda Institute of Education" and the circular enterprise name logo in the accused publicity sheet by Qingda Cloud Company was liable to confuse the relevant public, and its behavior constituted unfair competition. And as the Financial Innovation and New Third Board Research Group of Peking University was among the organizers on the accused course sheet, Peking University should bear joint liability with Qingda Cloud Company.

Qingda Cloud Company argued that the content listed in the course sheet at issue was a commonly used publicity term in the training industry, which did not possess originality. In the process of recruiting students, Qingda Cloud Company did not impersonate Qingda Institute, which would not cause confusion among the relevant public and did not constitute unfair competition.

After the trial, the court held that the course sheet at issue did not possess originality and did not constitute the work protected by China's Copyright Law, so it could not be found that Qingda Institute enjoyed the copyright on the course sheet at issue. Both Qingda Institute and Qingda Cloud Company are enterprises engaged in education and training established in Beijing municipal jurisdiction. The use of the name "Qingda Institute of Education" on the accused course sheet for enrollment and publicity was an act of unauthorized use of the abbreviated enterprise name of Qingda Institute which had certain influence, which was likely to mislead people to specific relation with Qingda Institute, constituting unfair competition. In addition, the court held that the evidence in the case could not reflect the connection between Peking University and the acts involved.

The court eventually supported Qingda Institute's claim of compensation for its economic losses due to the unfair competition act above and made a first-instance judgment accordingly.

When an enterprise publicizes its business, it should standardize the use of its business name as far as possible, so as to avoid confusion among the public between it and other enterprises which overlap with its business content and business area due to the non-standardized use behavior, otherwise there will be legal risk of unfair competition.