World-renowned NBA participant Michael Jordan was just lately awarded damages value $46,000 (RMB300,000) as emotional damages alongside with $7,600 (RMB50,000) as damages for authorized bills by a Shanghai Court over using Jordan’s title “Qiaodan” translating to Jordan in Chinese.
The Shanghai Court (Court) handed the mentioned order in opposition to a Chinese sportswear firm Qiaodan Sports LLC (Qiaodan) for utilizing the Chinese characters for “Qiaodan” in its company title and emblems for promoting sportswear. “Qiaodan” in Chinese means “Jordan”. The Court declined the competition of Qiaodan that “Jordan” was a typical Western surname and that its trademark “Qiaodan” had no reference with Michael Jordan. The Court held that Qiaodan’s try of deceptive the Chinese public was apparent as Michael Jordan was acknowledged by his surname “Qiaodan” amongst the Chinese folks.
Further, since registered emblems can solely be disputed inside a five-year timeline in China, the Court was not in a position to order Qiaodan to utterly stop from utilizing the mark “Qiaodan”. However, along with levying heavy damages on Qiaodan, the Court additionally ordered them to take affordable measures to make clear that its emblems had no connection with Michael Jordan, and to additionally problem a public apology (on-line and offline) clarifying that Qiaodan has no connection with Michael Jordan in any method in anyway.
It is pertinent to notice that the order is available in view of recognition of rights in a person’s title beneath Article 32 of the Trademark Law of the People’s Republic of China. The same provision defending names and surnames of people is discovered beneath Section 35 of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 in India.
