After its trademark application for the name of track star Liu Xiang was rejected, sportswear giant Nike has filed a civil suit against the Trademark Appeal Board of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, the Shanghai Evening Post reported.
At a hearing in Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court on Nov 27, attorneys for the appeal board said Nike's application was denied because a similar trademark using the Chinese characters for Liu Xiang Pai was registered by a Shanghai clothing company 26 years ago.
I am glad to see that the Chinese courts have told Nike to shove it in regards to their trying to capture exclusive rights to the name "LIU XIANG".
Liu Xiang is a great athlete and fully deserving of all the commercial spin-offs he is able to generate from his success. However, because of the relatively small number of names used in China there are thousands of people in China with the exact same name "LIU XIANG".
And for Nike to be able to claim they have exclusive rights to a person's name is just not on. And so good on the Chinese courts for telling Nike to shove it.
You can trademark someone else's name??!! So all I have to do is catch some rising stars before they realize they have to trademark their own names and I'm a gazillionaire!!
AS, not just mcd's but the IOC owning the word olympic...
one of the lesser known trademark pathetic stories was a small thai restaurant in NYC that was named planet thailand. planet hollywood send them a letter saying they could not use that name; eventually, not having the money for a court battle, the owners changed it to "planeat thailand". years later, guess who's still in business?
uakari wrote:AS, not just mcd's but the IOC owning the word olympic...
one of the lesser known trademark pathetic stories was a small thai restaurant in NYC that was named planet thailand. planet hollywood send them a letter saying they could not use that name; eventually, not having the money for a court battle, the owners changed it to "planeat thailand". years later, guess who's still in business?
Agreed that it's patent law that has gotten out of hand, also in the area of software patents.
Trademark law, on the other hand, generally works fine. Practical issues with trademark law that earlier posters point out have more to do with the general legal system and the associated high costs.
I have not followed the details of this case, and the article is not clear, but I don't think this is about patenting 'genes'. That concept was thrown out a while ago. The Myriad Genetics patents were originally allowed to stand as they were based on the discovery of the DNA sequence differences in the BRAC genes that have diagnostic potential (breast cancer). If I remember correctly, their claim is that others cannot use the genetic differences as a marker for genetic counseling. Effectively, they would have a monopoly on that genetic test for 15 years.
So the question is, can they patent a 'genetic test' based on their discovery of important DNA sequence differences that have always existed in the population?
Daisy wrote:So the question is, can they patent a 'genetic test' based on their discovery of important DNA sequence differences that have always existed in the population?
Patent law is and should be about inventions as opposed to discoveries; and I agree that this case is about mere discoveries, so there should be no patents granted for that.
Daisy wrote:So the question is, can they patent a 'genetic test' based on their discovery of important DNA sequence differences that have always existed in the population?
Patent law is and should be about inventions as opposed to discoveries; and I agree that this case is about mere discoveries, so there should be no patents granted for that.
I agree that we're talking about discoveries in this case. But aren't many drugs discoveries too? Or is it impossible to patent a 'natural' drug?
