Amazon Connect Technology Services (Beijing) Co., a Chinese subsidiary of Amazon, was determined by a Beijing court to be held liable for trademark infringement over its use of the logo “AWS.” The court banned the e-commerce giant from using the logo in China.
“AWS” refers to Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing service operated by Amazon.
A Chinese tech company, Beijing ActionSoft Science and Technology Development Company, sued Amazon and its local Chinese partner, Beijing Sinnet Technology Co., in July 2018 for their use of the “AWS” logo.
The court ruled that the defendants should pay 76.5 million yuan (about $11 million) to compensate the plaintiff for economic losses.
An Amazon representative told Wall Street Journal: “Amazon was the first to use the AWS logo in China to sell cloud services by many years. We strongly disagree with the court’s ruling and have appealed the case to the Supreme People’s Court.”
ActionSoft was founded in 2003. According to Its website, it provides software services.
The firm stated in a public notice that it applied to register the logo “AWS” in 2004 and obtained approval by China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce on Feb. 7, 2008.
The court judgment stated that the defendants’ use of “AWS” was similar to Actionsoft’s in terms of content, targeted clients, purpose of service, and sales channels, which could cause confusion among consumers.
The Epoch Times reached out to Amazon, but it did not respond by press time.
The e-commerce platform entered the Chinese market in 2004, but it has failed to gain traction among Chinese consumers, as they turned to domestic rivals such as JD.com and Taobao owned by Alibaba.
