Time Inc loses S’pore trademark case against Chinese magazine

SINGAPORE — Publishing giant Time Inc has failed in its bid to invalidate the Singapore trademark of Fortune Times, a bimonthly Chinese financial magazine.

The New York-based company publishes more than 90 magazines, including TIME and FORTUNE, which were founded in 1923 and 1930, respectively. Fortune Times Pte Ltd, owned by Mr Li San Zhong, a sole proprietor in China, published the first issue of its namesake here in March 2004 and was assigned its trademark in March last year.

Time Inc argued that the Fortune Times mark infringed upon the trademarks of its TIME and FORTUNE magazines, confusing customers and damaging its interests.

Fortune Times utilised the same dominant components as its marks and there was a high likelihood that the competing marks would be seen as economically linked even though they were not, argued Time Inc.

However, the principal assistant registrar of trademarks ruled that Time Inc’s application had failed on all grounds. In a 31-page judgment made public yesterday, Ms See Tho Sok Yee held that although all three marks were used for similar goods and Fortune Times had marginal conceptual similarities with FORTUNE magazine’s mark, the competing marks were “more dissimilar than similar when observed in their totality”.

She noted that while the memorable components of the TIME and FORTUNE marks are the words themselves, Fortune Times’ mark is distinguished by four large Chinese characters positioned to the left of the words “FORTUNE TIMES”.

Ms See Tho added that prospective consumers have the opportunity to browse through periodicals before deciding whether to purchase them. And since content would be the paramount consideration for consumers of periodicals — who were likely to exercise a relatively high degree of care in selecting reading material of interest to them — there was no reasonable likelihood of confusion between the goods.

She also found no grounds to assert that Fortune Times would damage Time Inc’s interests or dilute the distinctive character of its TIME and FORTUNE marks. She also remained unpersuaded by Time Inc’s “bare assertion” that Fortune Times’ mark had been chosen in bad faith to confuse customers into thinking there was a connection between the entities.

Time Inc was ordered to pay costs to Mr Li for the case.