Firm fined for Chinese character fault
Dow's "dao" character is a lucky brand for China
Media multinational Dow Jones has been ordered to apologise and pay 400,000 yuan (£29,000; $48,000) compensation, after using the work of a well-known Chinese calligrapher without permission.
Guan Dongsheng was commissioned to draw the character "dao", which approximates to the company's name and sounds auspicious to Chinese ears, as a gift for its chairman in 1994.
But he sued in July this year, after the firm adopted it as a logo for its Chinese operations, arguing that it had tacit permission to use the design as it pleased.
A Beijing court upheld Mr Guan's argument, but did not grant all the 5m yuan compensation that he had demanded.
The firm insisted it might appeal against the decision, querying Mr Guan's insistence that he had only just realised that his work had been adopted as a logo: Dow Jones has used it for almost nine years, and Mr Guan did work for the company until 2001. |