Recently, the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board of China (TRAB) affirmed registration of 80 trademarks of Qiaodan Sports Company Limited (hereinafter as Qiaodan Sports) including No. 3148047 "乔丹" trademark, No.3148050 "QIAODAN" trademark and No. 3028870 figurative trademark.
Qiaodan Sports started to use "乔丹" as the trade name since 2000, which was then approved registration by Fujian Quanzhou Administrative Bureau for Industry and Commerce. The trademark used on their products was the Chinese character “乔丹” and the figurative mark. Later, Qiaodan Sports also registered over 130 other defensive trademarks.
During the registration of those marks, US Nike International Ltd., having long term relationship with Michael Jordan, filed oppositions against 8 defensive trademarks of Qiaodan Sports in 2002 and 2007, but all of them were rejected. Nike International Ltd. then requested reviews by TRAB, but was rejected.
TRAB held that the alleged trademarks of “QIAODAN” and “乔丹” differentiated from the name of Michael Jordan and its Chinese transliteration “迈克尔. 乔丹” . Besides, there was no relationship between “Jordan” and the name Michael Jordan, since Jordan is a surname commonly used in English speaking countries. Consequently, TRAB decided that there was no misleading or market confusion caused by the trademarks owned by Oiaodan Sports, and therefore maintained registration of all the opposed trademarks.
