Michael Jordan registered his name as a trademark in China, but did not register a Chinese transliteration. Qiaodan (乔丹) is a Chinese sportswear manufacturer that registered 乔丹 as a trademark. As 乔丹 is also the Chinese transliteration for “Jordan”, Michael Jordan sued Qiaodan for deceiving customers into believing that he endorsed the company.
Whereas the previous court decisions of the TRAB (two trials) dismissed the suit, ruling that there was no sufficient evidence that Qiaodan was really referring to Michael Jordan is a fairly common surname. At the 8th of December 2016 the Supreme Peoples Court decided that both the trademark authority's adjudication and the previous court decisions against Jordan's legitimate trademark claims should be revoked. The court ruled that Qiaodan Sports Co. violated Jordan's right to his name and broke provisions in the Trademark Law. This decision is final.
As laid down in Article 31 of the of the 2001 Chinese Trademark Law an application for the registration of a trademark shall not create any prejudice to the prior right of another person, nor unfair means be used to pre-emptively register the trademark of some reputation another person has used. Although “Qiaodan (乔丹)” is just a part of Michael Jordan's legal name“Michael Jeffrey Jordan”, 乔丹 is often used by Chinese public when referring to the former American basketball player, and there is already a "stable" link between the name and the specific individual.
In order to prove that the public is likely to be mistaken the goods or services labeled with the disputed trademarks have a specific association (e.g. endorsement or licensing) with that individual, Jordan submitted two properly notarized surveys. Qiaodan Sports Co. has operated, promoted, and used for many years of its trade name and trademarks, which allows the relevant public to recognize the goods labeled with “乔丹” originated from Qiaodan Sports Co. Nevertheless it is insufficient to prove that the relevant public would not mistake the disputed trademark’s goods or services to have specific connection such as endorsement or licensing relationship with the former American basketball player.
The objective bad faith of Qiaodan Sports Co. when filing the disputed trademarks is one of the most critical factors this Court considers when determining whether the registration of the disputed trademark damaged Jordan's name right. At first Qiaodan Sports Co. which was originally named “Fujian Province Jinjiang Citiy Chen Tai Riverside Commodity Factory”, cannot provide just and reasonable explanations for filing and registering the disputed trademarks. Moreover Qiaodan Sports Co. orientated its primary business highly related to Michael Jordan's profession and should have certain degree of understanding of Michael Jordan and his fame. Later on Qiaodan Sports Co. registered series of other trademarks like Micheal Jordan's jersey number “23” and especially the name of Michael Jordan's two children, which highlighted its objective bad faith.
However, original court rulings regarding the Pinyin part were upheld by the SPC. Jordan has no exclusive rights to the use of the alphabetic spelling of "Qiaodan". Hence the company is still allowed to use the phonetic spellings of Jordan’s Chinese name using the Roman alphabet, however, saying they do not infringe on his right to use his name in the country.