“3 ‘Jordan’ trademarks shall be revoked, ‘QIAODAN’ and ‘qiaodan’ trademarks shall remain”, the verdict was public announced on 8th December 2016 by the Supreme People’s Court on retrial of 10 trademark administrative disputes between the retrial applicant Michael Jeffrey Jordan (Michael Jordan) and respondent Trademark Review and Adjudication Board of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (Trademark Review and Adjudication Board), with third party in the first trial Jordan Sports Co. Ltd. (Qiaodan Ltd). Among which, in the 3 trademark cases in relation to “Jordan”, the court affirmed that 3 “Jordan” trademarks should be revoked, and ordered the Trademark Review Board to make a new ruling; in the other 7 cases, the court affirmed that the retrial applicant does not own the right to the pinyin name “QIAODAN” or “qiaodan”, hence dismissed the retrial demand.
Previously, the Trademark Review Board rejected Michael Jordan’s revoke applications against various trademarks of Qiaodan Ltd. The retrial applicant didn’t accept the ruling and applied for administrative lawsuit. In 2015, Michael Jordan refused to accept the ruling of the second instance trial made by the Beijing Higher People’s Court on 69 trademark administrative disputes, and applied for retrial with the Supreme People’s Court. In December 2015, the Supreme People’s Court took over the 10 cases that had open verdicts, suspended the review of 8 cases, and rejected the retrial application of the other 50 cases.
Among the 10 public pronouncement cases, the Supreme People’s Court determined the scope of “name” protected by the personal name protection which was proposed by Michael Jordan. In the 3 cases in connection with “Jordan” trademark, the Supreme People’s Court affirmed that the registration of the trademark in dispute damaged the prior personal name right owned by Michael Jordan, because the Qiaodan Ltd had obvious ill intention on registering the trademarks in dispute, neither of Qiaodan Ltd.’s operation condition, nor Qiaodan Ltd.’s advertisement and usage of its company name and relevant trademarks, etc. is sufficient to make the trademarks registration legitimate, hence affirmed the 3 “Jordan” trademarks should be revoked, and ordered the Trademark Review Board to make a new ruling. Among the rest 7 cases, the Supreme People’s Court ruled that the retrial applicant does not own the right over pinyin names “QIAODAN” or “qiaodan”, and rejected the retrial request.