A trademark dispute between a foreign luxury hotel brand and a local spa chain yesterday became the country's first court hearing to be broadcast live via the Internet.

The two-hour hearing, in which Britain-based Ritz Hotel Ltd is suing Shanghai-based Shanghai Huangpu Rits Club for using the name "Rits", was shown live on two websites.

The hotel is seeking 300,000 yuan ($43,000) in compensation from the spa, and is also demanding it changes its name.

Meng Ting, the attorney for Ritz, said the hotel's name, and the copyright on it, dates back more than 100 years and the brand is internationally known. Over that time it has been endorsed by the late Princess Diana, American President Abraham Lincoln and film star Marilyn Monroe.

"The State Administration of Industry and Commerce even refused to register 'Rits' as a trademark because of its similarity to 'Ritz'," he said.

Rits defended its name, saying it has no similarities to Ritz in terms of meaning, pronunciation or business category.

Rits' attorney Xu Yuhui said the spa's parent company started using the name in 2000 and since then it has gained a lot of recognition in the industry.

"Ritz registered its trademark here in 2002, but it goes by the name 'Ritz-Carlton', not 'Ritz'," Xu said.

According to the Ritz-Carlton website, the hotel group was registered in 1983 with the purchase of The Ritz-Carlton, Boston and the rights to the name 'Ritz-Carlton'.

No verdict was reached at yesterday's hearing and a date to reconvene the trial has yet to be announced.

Lu Guoqiang, deputy director of Shanghai No 2 Intermediate People's Court and the presiding judge, later told the media that the Internet broadcast had been made to make legal proceedings more accessible to the public and therefore more transparent.

"The Internet is becoming more influential," he said.

"It goes beyond the usual limits of time and space, so even people in other countries can see how a Chinese court case is handled."

In the future, more cases will be broadcast over the Internet, he said.

The first case broadcast live on television in China was in 1987. It involved a bus ticket-seller who was sentenced to death for shooting to death a bank clerk with a stolen gun in Shanghai.

Another trademark dispute between instrumentation firms American Rosemount and Shanghai RSMT Instrum-entation Co Ltd, will be broadcast live online today.

(China Daily April 8, 2008)