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Tesla Wins One Over Chinese Trademark Troll
cartechboy writes "The Tesla Model S went on sale in China this week, at a price of $121,000--which is the same $79,900 price as in the U.S. plus a whole bunch of other costs tacked on, mostly the customs duty China uses to protect its own auto industry and a stiff value-added tax. But that's not the big news. Lost in the announcement was the news that Tesla got its brand name back from a Chinese trademark troll who'd registered it in 2006, even before the very first electric Roadster was sold in the States. So now the company's stores can carry the name "Te Si La," which is the Chinese transliteration most familiar to consumers in that country. Score one more for Tesla Motors."
Tesla was not competent enough to register the trademark in all markets it was going to do business, and someone else did. Rather than working out some medication where Tesla paid for the lack of foresight, it was simply taken away. I don't think that the ruling was wrong, obviously China does not value the free market the way the US does, but there should have a happy middle between millions of dollars and something reasonable to pay.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
As mentioned in the article, most buyers in China will get this more for show than for the environment. At least in the U.S. when trolls call electric cars pointless, I can point to the 100% wind power on my electric bill and be smug about it, or at least point out that big industrial power plants in the countryside can scrub and dilute their exhaust more efficiently than thousands of cars crammed in a little city, but in China I think the power plants right now are probably just as bad.
I do find it strange that the article mentions China incentivizing electric vehicles to reduce smog, while also pointing out the huge import duties Tesla has to pay. Given how cheap almost everything made in China is here, I didn't realize that they could tax our exports of anything that highly.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
In China, money talks, and the peasants have ZERO power or say over their own lives. China isn't South America, where national pride will occasionally give victory to local individuals over US giants.
So, the Chinese authorities will happily CRUSH the legal rights of any lesser Chinese individual, if that person stands between a large pay-off to Chinese elites, and the US company that is willing to write those cheques. And sadly, by and large, the Chinese sheeple go along with these abuses, in the name of growing economic prosperity.
May I suggest you Google the deeply sickening abuses that Chinese couples suffered when they wished to marry, because the state claimed complete rights over their bodies, and therefore insisted on the most humiliating and invasive physical and psychological 'inspections' of individuals before they were granted the right to marry. These evil compulsory inspections (actually state mandated 'rape', which is the correct description of all forced intimate examinations) have been suspended for the time being, but many powerful members of the Chinese elite are insisting they are re-instated.
Carbon credits. Tesla has no honor.
Wow, you have alway been a dick on slashdot but this overt anti-semitism is a new low. Or I guess it's probably not, I'm just lucky enough not to have seen most of your other posts.
So, how long before I can buy a "Ta Su Lo" from one of those lock-ups in the neighborhood next Beijing's Pearl Market?
the customs duty China uses to protect its own auto industry
But remember, we have free trade!
No really, all you have to do is define it such that "free trade" means the US has to bend over, while China, etc. get to do whatever they want to protect their industries.
Lol
And you are OK with Patent Trolls as well? Because it's the same mindset that drives both these "business models" - gain control of something you have no intention of using yourself except to extort money from some company that has a fat wallet.
Classy.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I can't imagine living in a world where 70 thousand dollars must seem like something obtainable only by the top 1%. I actually feel really bad for you.
is because the Chinese claimed that it was a Chinese Tesla Motor Car. IOW, he was a pure troll, nothing more. Now, had he been off developing something totally none-related, he likely would have stood a chance. But when you are a a troll, even China will sometimes strick you down.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I can't imagine living in a world where 70 thousand dollars must seem like something obtainable only by the top 1%
??!?!
Unless you live on Mars, you *do* live in that world.
To BILLIONS of people "in this world" a $70K+ car is something obtainable only by the top 1%. To the deeply impoverished of Africa, India and Asia - And some parts of South America - Spending more money than they will see in their entire lives on a car seems unimaginable, especially when you consider spending $40K on a car and then spreading your 'leftover' $30K in an African village on goats, vaccinations, mosquito nets, school supplies and a well will improve their lives dramatically.
You will literally be saving the lives of children.
Sure you'll be driving a Leaf instead of a Tesla, but so what?
Yeah, yeah, I'm a commie. Whatever. Stop buying stupidly expensive cars and help your fellow man.
Boost the cost on China made crap.
I'm an American, and while I probably walk past at the grocery store that make over $70k/year, being approx. seven times as much as my own income makes it feel like it might as well be something only the really rich people have.
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
Saying that the government should take the money from people to do that would make you a commie.
Saying that it is the personal responsibility of people to do that make you a conservative.
Repeating that meme because you want to lessen what others are saying and because you read it so often from liberal sites just makes you an idiot.
I know how much my fellow slashdotters like to nitpick and complain, the place wouldn't feel like home without you curmudgeons out there. (smile) I know *I* don't like the new version, I've never liked any of the new versions that have come along, always sticking with the closest thing to the classic interface that is offered at the time. I prefer the green-bar printout inspired listing of story summaries, not something that looks like it came out of a glossy magazine or pop culture website.
The way I look at it, the more images, the larger the graphics, the more space devoted to pretty floating banners, the less room there is for actual content I shouldn't have to do a full page scroll just to move from one story to the next.
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
Buying a Tesla does help your fellow man. We need to move to electric vehicles and reduce dependency on oil and coal. As well as reducing your own output of pollution you help popularize EVs and show that they are viable and profitable.
I'm under now illusion that spending that kind of money on a car is some kind of act of charity, but you could do a lot worse.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
CHICOMs that Imperial Capitalism is king! oh, wait....
Giving $30k to an organization for Africa doesn't help anyone. The Africans themselves either steal or waste the money. Don't ask me - ask the NGOs that work there, they'll give you an earful as long as they don't think anyone's listening and will nail them for racism.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Is it better than 10 people have great lives, or that 50 people have mediocre lives?
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
Is it better than 10 people have great lives, or that 50 people have mediocre lives?
Depends - am I one of the 10 people or the 50 people?
SSDs were stupid expensive, but because the rich bought them, now they're affordable for most people at just over 500$ for a terabyte (affordable at least in first world countries, but obviously eventually for the third world). Had it not been for those rich people, it would have been much harder for SSDs to gain traction.
Same will go for OLED TVs and electric cars.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
Let's say you're neither.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
Exactly.
Someone had to buy those personal computers in the 1980s for $3000 a pop (or more) in order to drive the efficiencies that lead to the current wave of sub-$500 PCs that are all over the place.
If someone wants to spend more to be at the forefront, why not congratulate them and allow the march of progress continue?
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Buying a Tesla does help your fellow man. We need to move to electric vehicles and reduce dependency on oil and coal
That's why I said buy a Nissan Leaf instead and use the leftover $30K to help some kids.
That's right, there's kids dying in Africa right now because their parents can't afford mosquito nets to protect them from Malaria. Luckily, they can take cold comfort in the fact that one day they'll be able to buy an OLED TV.
If someone wants to spend more to be at the forefront, why not congratulate them and allow the march of progress continue?
Because they're doing enough of that congratulation themselves whilst whizzing past you in the carpool lane or while making passive aggressive comments about how 'gas guzzlers' should be banned by the government.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
If life is so miserable, then why keep having more children? I'd feel terrible about bringing kids into this world knowing they could die so young, or at least endure a life of poverty. At the very least, it's selfish.
What do you think of the so-called 'prime directive' from Star Trek?
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
Why isn't there a still import duty/tariff on Chinese junk flooding the US?
Hrm, you the same folks who were cheering when the whole 'iPhone name sale' happened? Where the person that sold it was 'cheated' because they didn't know they were selling it to Apple?
Rah rah Tesla. Hail a win for freedom . . . Seriously slashdot? You used to be . . . oh wait you never were.