On March 9, Jinjiang People’s Court held a public trial of Qiaodan Sports’ lawsuit against Nike Sports (China) Co., Ltd. and Nike Commerce (China) Co., Ltd.

The suit alleges that Nike Sports and Nike Commerce infringed Qiaodan Sports’ trademark rights and made the Chinese company victim to unfair competition.

Qiaodan claimed that the two Nike companies misled consumers by using Qiaodan-related keywords, such as the “Qiandan official website”, “Qiandan basketball boots” and “Qiaodan sportswear” (in Chinese) during their search engine rankings. Qiaodan claims these acts had constituted unfair competition.

Qiaodan is seeking roughly RMB300,000 in damages and fees, and also a public apology for hurting its exclusive rights to use registered trademarks. 

Nike responded that they did not use the Qiandan-related logo on their official websites, but only used some backend keywords. In their opinion, they did not infringe Qiaodan Sports’ trademark rights and should not be seen as unfair competition.

In July 2017, Qiaodan Sports filed a lawsuit against Michael Jordan and Fangda Partners, the law firm that represents him in China, accusing him of misleading consumers about a Supreme Court decision in his favor.

Source: news.online.sh.cn

Proofread by William Logsdon