Qiaodan Knocks Out Michael Jordan In Trademark Suit

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