Nike had a nasty surprise in the last week of 2004. Less than a month after a Nike TV commercials was banned for being offensive to Chinese, Nike lost an IPR lawsuit brought by cartoonist Zhu Zhiqiang who alleged that Nike had stolen a stick figure he had created and used it in a TV commercial.
Chinese blogger Isaac Mao:
Just like zheng said, a “radiculous” judgement on the case Nike v.s. Zhu Zhiqiang.
We never know whether Nike’s agent copied ideas from Zhu’s works. However, we know “Stickman” has existed in public domain for decades and widely used in different artworks and even technical fields…
It’s a case of misapplying intellectual laws.
Isaac Mao’s post, with links to other Chinese bloggers’ reactions, is here. There’s a Reuters story on the case here.