July 29, 2015 BY Yale Schalk / 0
Remember Michael Jordan suing Qiaodan for bogarting his name and likeness to sell what many might but definitely do consider wholesale ripoff sneakers?
He just lost.
After a journey of litigation dating to 2012, including Jordan’s redoubled efforts this spring to wrest his identity back from the Chinese sportswear brand, a Beijing court dismissed the whole thing, pretty much stating in its verdict that MJ is reaching:
“‘Jordan’ is not the only possible reference for ‘Qiaodan’ in the trademark under dispute.”
“In addition, ‘Jordan’ is a common surname used by Americans.”
The court continued that Qiaodan’s logo is nothing more than a silhouette, despite the fact that it’s clearly a slightly modified image of Jordan playing in Orlando during the 1997-98 season. The tweaks were apparently enough to allay any doubt.
So, the ruling essentially found that “Jordan” and “Qaiodan” – linguistically interchangeable in China – are not very similar after all, and that the clearly-MJ-jumping logo is not actually MJ and is not intended to jack the Jumpman logo concept. All happenstance.
Source: Yahoo
Filed under: Air Jordans
Tags: Air Jordan Michael Jordan