September 2017. Studio Peyo SA, the company behind the small blue characters the Smurfs, has scored a major victory in China after a court in Beijing ruled that the word Smurfs, which a Chinese businessman had applied to register, infringed Peyo’s trademark rights to the image of a smurf.

Reputation

The Court concluded that the Smurfs enjoyed widespread popularity in China and registration could mislead the public into thinking that both trademarks – the word Smurfs and the image of a Smurf –came from the same company.