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Nike did not plagiarize a Chinese designer's "matchstick man" character for an advertisement, the Beijing High People's Court ruled yesterday.

 

The judgment in Zhu Zhiqiang's claim overturned a decision made by the Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court in December 2004.

 

"Nike is delighted by the favorable verdict. This was never a commercial issue for us. It was a matter of principle," said Zhu Jinqian, director of communications for Nike China.

 

Zhu Zhiqiang, 30, yesterday refused to comment on the result. He will now have to pay court fees of more than 40,000 yuan (US$5,000).

 

According to the original judgment in 2004, the "matchstick man" in Nike's China advertising campaign violated Zhu's copyright.

 

The international sportswear company was initially ordered to pay 300,000 yuan (US$37,000) to Zhu and apologize publicly.

 

In 2000 and 2001, Zhu Zhiqiang completed five Flash productions containing a "matchstick man" character. He registered copyrights for the work at the Jilin Provincial Copyright Bureau in northeast China in 2001.

 

In 2003, Nike ran an advertisement containing what Zhu claimed to be a plagiarism of his "matchstick man".

 

The heads of the two figures are both black balls without faces, while their bodies, arms, legs and feet consist of black lines.

 

 

"Matchstick man" in Nike's advertisement

 

"But the head and body of the 'matchstick man' in Nike's advertisement are separate," Liu Hui, presiding judge of the case at the Beijing High People's Court, said yesterday.

 

He added there were differences in the way the arms and legs stretched out, as well as in the strokes used to draw the figures.

 

Further, because the stick figure design have been used before, for example in traffic signs, even prior to Zhu's creations, the court decided that it was not protected by law.

 

(China Daily June 16, 2006)