Business
11:16, 25-Aug-2017
New Balance wins $1.5 mln copyright damages in China
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A Chinese court has awarded US athletics shoemaker New Balance 1.5 million US dollars in copyright damages over its famous "N" logo.
A court in Suzhou in eastern Zhejiang Province ruled that three defendants who made shoes under the brand name New Boom "acted in concert to infringe" the rights of the US firm, according to the verdict.
The judges noted the almost perfect similarity of the logos, along with other factors, and concluded that the counterfeit products could be "easily confused" with the authentic US shoes.
The court ordered entrepreneur Zheng Chaosong together with the companies Xinpingheng and Bosidake to jointly pay around 10 million yuan in damages to New Balance.
New Balance has had a presence in China since 1995, where sales of sports equipment are growing rapidly.
In April 2015 the company lost a lawsuit against a Chinese investor who had registered the Mandarin name of the American shoemaker ("Xinbailun") on his own behalf.
With China being a major market for many consumer goods, international brands attached more importance to their intellectual property in China, including the brands' name in Mandarin, which may have been registered in China.
In another notable ruling, a Beijing court in 2015 rejected a complaint by basketball player Michael Jordan against a Chinese sportswear brand for using his Mandarin name.
But a subsequent court ruling in Jordan's favor last year allowed the former NBA star to reclaim his name.
Source(s): AFP