No Arsenal can save you from success

You can change your job, change your lover, change your nationality, even change your sex, but you can never change your football club. Itf is this kind of devotion that has led some Chinese fans of the London football club Arsenal to be less than happy with recent legal events transpiring in the Beijing court system.　
The beloved name and logo of their club has been embroiled in a legal battle with the China Trademark Board, over an alleged copyright infringement regarding the unauthorized use of its name.

The argument is over whether or not a glasses manufacturing company, the Daguangming Glasses Company, based in Hangzhou, has breached copyright, in Chinese and English, by using Arsenal's name and logo.

Did the company register the name before the football club? Did the club cover the necessary legal areas to cover items such as glasses?

A background in journalism, which was based almost entirely on how to not get sued out of existence, compels me to avoid making any direct comments without the use of question marks or the word allegedly.

Instead, I shall meander into the safer territory of vague generalizations. When I first came to China, I immediately recognized the Chinese expression "developing country" as a version of the expression in the Irish language, "an beal bocht," literally translated as "the poor mouth," a device to convince the listener that this guy really doesn't have that much money so there's no point in wasting your time pursuing him too vigorously. It has taken many years of living in China, learning Chinese, and learning about Chinese culture to get me to the stage that I am not being totally ripped off every time I go to a market where the price is negotiable. The logic is that as a foreigner, I can pay more because "I'm good for it."

Copyright infringement has become an important revenue source for many business entities in these times of financial crisis, but it is interesting to note that the crosshairs of the legal wings of these companies have started to zone in on China.

Manchester United is another international brand that has started to take issue with some alleged violations.

Well China, congratulations, you've craved respect and status in the international arena and now you have it. Unfortunately, due to your great advancements, now the rest of the world has decided that you too are "good for it." That means that "an beal bocht" no longer works, and if some foreign companies claim their brand has been infringed upon it may be because they are of the opinion that the Chinese companies are good for the money. As China grows and develops its own brands and faces the potential of foreign companies jumping on their bandwagon, perhaps it's time for China to address these issues, before the shoe is on the other foot.