Intellectual Property
Who holds the rights to an ancient character?Posted by Joel Martinsen on Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 6:30 PM
Hengyuanxiang, a wool clothing brand notorious for its annoying TV commercials, is involved a legal wrangle with a crafty independent businessman who claims that an image used by the company infringes on his trademark. Yu Wenqing, the owner of the Xingyelong Garments Company Changshu, Jiangsu Province, filed his lawsuit after discovering that Hengyuanxiang was selling shirts bearing a stylized sheep's head logo — actually a character found on ancient bronzes — that he registered as a trademark in 2002. Yu is seeking 10 million yuan in compensation. Hengyuanxiang countersued, claiming that it had created the logo in 1997 and registered it with the copyright office in 2002. The company initially sought 4,000 yuan in compensation, but amended its claim before trial to 500,000 yuan. But as the dispute between the two companies is more than just a simple trademark infringement case, the Yangtse Evening Post reports:
In court yesterday, Hengyuanxiang argued that the logo shown in the middle of the above image was an artistic work created in 1997 after consulting ancient oracle bone, bronze, and seal characters. The logo began appearing on the company's clothing in 1998 and on company publications in 2000, and as an artistic work, it ought to be protected from copyright infringement. Yu countered by charging that Hengyuanxiang's "artwork" was nothing more than a copy of a bronze character used in the Shang Dynasty (left image). Yu's lawyer mocked Hengyuanxiang: "It's a graphic of text that existed 3,000 years ago. So tell me which of the plaintiff's rights the defendant has infringed: plagiarism rights or reproduction rights?" The court session ended yesterday at 3pm without reaching a decision. Despite a chain of events that would seem to paint Yu's trademark as the malicious appropriation of a mark already in use by Hengyuanxiang, a lawyer consulted by the Yangtse Evening Post said that the larger company's copyright claim has little hope of prevailing against Yu's stronger trademark registration. For his part, Yu just wishes that Hengyuanxiang would stop picking on him:
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