Lawyers appeal to have 'MLGB' brand annulled
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, October 30, 2015
FOUR local lawyers have approached the state watchdog seeking annulment on the fashion trademark "MLGB," widely seen as a pinyin abbreviation of a vulgar curse in China.
"It was wrong of the authorities to approve it in the first place because it is an insult to the Chinese people," said Meng Yujie, one of the lawyers.
She said "MLGB" clearly violates the law which bans trademarks that "undermine social morality or have other negative influences."
The brand is registered with Junke Trade Co, a Shanghai-based company. The MLGB apparels are sold at the fashion outlets of the "New Project Center" (NPC), which was started in Shanghai six years ago by a popular local TV presenter and actor Li Chen and Wilber Pan, a singer from Taiwan.
Officially, the four characters are supposed to mean "My Life's Getting Better." In fact, many of NPC's products carry the full phrase, but the implied suggestion was not lost on anyone.
Li Chen couldn't be reached for comments yesterday.
The Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce is expected to rule on the validity of the trademark within 12 months.
The right to use "MLGB" as the trademark for clothes, hats and shoes was approved at the end of 2011 and later for all other products categorized by the Trademark Office to the same company. It holds the rights for 10 years.
When a trademark passes the preliminary scrutiny by the authorities, it is required to be made public for possible complaints in the next three months before it is approved for use.
"The problem does not lie so much in the procedure itself as in the fact that few people would notice the violations," said Yao Hongjun, a lawyer with Watson & Band Law Offices, and who is supporting Meng in the fight against the offensive trademark.
Meng, who works with Capital Law & Partners, said she took the initiative after noticing a young girl wearing a T-shirt with "MLGB" printed on it at an airport in Tianjin in September. She later found out that it was a fashion brand.
"Whatever it's said to mean, its innuendo can't be missed. My feelings are deeply hurt every time it is brought up," she said.
At the NPC outlet in the iapm Mall on Huaihai Road M., a young girl surnamed Yin said she had same confusion over what it meant when saw the brand name for the first time.
"I said to myself, why is it insulting people? But I'm okay with it now that I understand its message, and I like the brand because it's hip," she told Shanghai Daily while also adding that she was a fan of Li Chen.
A female shop attendant who has been working at the outlet for two years said some customers would inquire what the abbreviations meant but most of them accepted it after learning it stood for "My Life's Getting Better."
"People from all age groups shop here. From my perspective the NPC has made a great contribution to promote young Chinese fashion brands," she said.
Meng hopes the case would garner enough public attention and add pressure on the authorities to force them to annul the trademark. "If the authorities don't give a positive reply, we will sue the company for moral damages, but we hope we do not have to draw attention to ourselves this way," she said.
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