Major News: RELX Sues WIK and Factory Moke in Pod Compatibility Dispute

On June 16, according to reports from Blue Hole New Consumption, the leading domestic e-cigarette brand RELX has recently submitted a lawsuit to a court in Guangdong, officially suing WIK e-cigarettes and its factory Dongguan Moke for unfair competition disputes.

The lawsuit involves two defendants, one being WIK Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., and the other being Dongguan Moke Technology Co., Ltd.

As is well known, pods are one of the important profit points for every brand in the e-cigarette industry. Therefore, being responsible for the e-cigarettes and specific model pods developed by oneself is a safety responsibility, business ethics, and social responsibility that every company should uphold.

In the lawsuit, RELX stated that WIK unauthorizedly authorized Moke to produce and sell pods that are compatible with RELX e-cigarettes and specific models, known as universal pods. WIK's products have been widely promoted using phrases like "RELX universal pods" and "RELX and WIK pods can be used interchangeably," leveraging RELX's brand recognition to attract consumers and gain improper benefits.

In this regard, RELX believes that the logos of RELX and WIK are highly similar and used in the e-cigarette field, which can easily mislead consumers into mistakenly believing that WIK's products are from the RELX brand, or even that there is a specific connection between the two.

RELX considers WIK's actions to be essentially a form of "counterfeiting," which is clearly an attempt to attach itself to another brand's reputation and seize the fruits of others' labor. The related unfair competition behavior has caused losses to RELX, and WIK should bear compensation responsibilities.

The lawsuit also indicates that RELX believes the aforementioned unfair competition behavior will inevitably lead to a diversion of RELX e-cigarette users, with some products facing the risk of substantial substitution. Additionally, WIK's actions of leveraging RELX's brand recognition and reputation to gain more trading opportunities violate the principles of honesty and business ethics, which not only causes RELX to lose more trading opportunities and suffer commercial losses but also objectively undermines the innovation incentive mechanism in the e-cigarette market and disrupts the normal market competition order.

Based on this, RELX claims that WIK and Moke have violated the "Anti-Unfair Competition Law" and that their actions constitute unfair competition, demanding that they bear legal responsibilities such as stopping the infringement, compensating for losses, and eliminating the impact.

According to information from the Chinese Judicial Process Information Public Network, the case was accepted by the court on June 2 and was transferred to the trial court on June 3.

As the relevant evidence in this case has not yet been made public, the outside world currently has no way of knowing more detailed information about the case.