The China-based sports brand Qiaodan Sports Company—its name phonetically imitating the popular U.S. footwear brand, Air Jordan—is countersuing for trademark infringement. It demanded Air Jordan’s producer, Nike, to apologize in public and pay compensation fees of 300,000 yuan (approximately $47,400).
Nike has been in a copyright battle with Qiaodan Sports Company, based in China’s southern province of Fujian, for 16 years, as “Qiaodan” (喬丹, pronounced cheow-dahn) is the Mandarin Chinese transliteration of Jordan. It has sued the Qiaodan company 10 times since 2002.
