Jissbon condoms’ dodgy logo

jissbon_website.jpg

In 2004, Danwei looked at the Chinese condom brand Jissbon, and the striking similarity of the Jissbon logo to the Durex logo.

However you interpret the scary English name Jissbon, the Chinese jie shi bang (杰士邦) uses the same characters as the Chinese for James Bond, which is probably not a punishable IPR infringement, but dodgy nonetheless.

Talk Talk China recently requested their readers to submit weird Chinese brand names; one of the commentors mentioned the Jissbon website.

Things have moved on at Jissbon since 2004. Aside from their website’s animated condom man, short-skirted cartoon women, and lounge music soundtrack, above the Jissbon logo is the Ansell logo. Ansell used to be known as Pacific Dunlop; it’s a multinational company that makes a wide range of protective latex products. It seems that they have acquired some or all of Jissbon.

Despite the slick new website, they have not changed the logo, which is still an utterly shameful copy of the Durex logo. Check the old Danwei post to see how similar the logos are.

On the other hand, Durex seem to have given up updating their Chinese website; most of the links from the homepage are dead. There is still a record of their lawsuit against Jissbon, which included charges of copying Durex’s website contents, but not — it seems on cursory examination — logo piracy.

UPDATE: Ethical question: the image above is a screenshoot of part of the Jissbon website. Is that an IPR infringement? Or just fair use?

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