## Facts

- Rugao Printing Machinery Factory manufactured printing machines sold under the “Yinzhi” trademark.
- The “Yinzhi” trademark was used on Rugao’s machines as a source identifier in the marketplace.
- Yide Company operated a business that repaired and resold Rugao’s “Yinzhi”-branded printing machines.
- Rugao brought a trademark infringement action against Yide in the Nantong City, Jiangsu Province Intermediate People’s Court in 2003.
- According to the publicly available case summary, Rugao produced credible evidence that Yide removed the “Yinzhi” marks from the machines and sold the machines without trademarks.
- Public sources available for this case do not provide additional operational details, such as the number of machines involved, the exact method of mark removal, whether the machines were modified beyond repair, how the goods were marketed at resale, or what damages or other remedies Rugao requested.

## Issues

1. Whether removing the “Yinzhi” trademark from genuine Rugao printing machines and reselling those machines without the mark constitutes trademark infringement.
2. Whether a repair-and-resale business may avoid trademark liability by de-branding genuine goods before resale.

## Decision

- The case is identified as a trademark infringement action filed by Rugao against Yide in the Nantong City, Jiangsu Province Intermediate People’s Court in 2003.
- Based on the publicly available summary, the court record referenced Rugao’s submission of credible evidence that Yide removed “Yinzhi” marks and sold the machines without trademarks.
- The publicly accessible materials do not disclose the court’s final holding, the legal rule applied, the court’s reasoning, or the relief (if any) awarded.

## Legal Principles

- Trademark law protects a mark’s role in identifying the commercial source of goods and preserving the trademark owner’s goodwill connected to goods sold under that mark.
- Resale of genuine goods can raise different trademark questions than counterfeit sales; the dispute here centers on mark removal rather than unauthorized mark placement.
- Removing a trademark from a product prior to resale can be alleged to interfere with trademark functions (including source identification and quality signaling), depending on the facts and the legal standard applied.
- For this case, the specific standard used by the Nantong Intermediate People’s Court and the outcome cannot be verified from open materials because the judgment text and a complete public case report are not available.

## Conclusion

Rugao Printing Machinery Factory sued Yide Company in 2003 in the Nantong City, Jiangsu Province Intermediate People’s Court, alleging that Yide repaired and resold Rugao printing machines after removing the “Yinzhi” trademark and selling the machines without any mark; while a public case summary notes Rugao offered credible evidence of that conduct, open sources do not provide the court’s holding, reasoning, or remedies.


Rugao Printing Machinery Factory v. Yide Company, Nantong City, Jiangsu Province Intermediate People’s Court (2003)