Puma fined in China for local logo infringement
A Shanghai court has ordered German sportswear company Puma to pay 2.9 million yuan ($421,340) for infringing the goat’s head logo of a Chinese wool producing company.
According to the Shanghai Daily, the court ruled Puma copied the image created especially for the Year of Goat in 2015 and used it on shoes and hooded sweatshirts.
The court said a 90-year-old local brand Hengyuanxiang registered the logo, adapted from a form of ancient Chinese hieroglyphic characters, in March 2014. The only difference between the two companies’ logos was the size, it concluded.
Puma denied the accusations, saying it had just used the hieroglyphic character, which could be used by anyone.
Similar cases involving trademarks appear in China regularly. In December, a Chinese court ruled for US basketball legend Michael Jordan. It ordered local sportswear company Qiaodan to stop using the Chinese characters that make up the name Jordan.
Source: RT