Yao sues Coke for 12 cents

[stkelly52]

http://espn.go.com/nba/news/2003/0526/1559108.html

This guy needs to learn what being in America is all about. If you sue someone make it for more than just 12 cents

Serously, it sounds to me like he won't have a leg to stand on in this one.

[Ben E Lou]

Doesn't coca-cola mean "bite the wax tadpole" in Chinese?

[stkelly52]

No, that was just another urban legend.

[Daimyo]

Could this just be like defending a trademark? IE, he doesn't really care to profit off it, he just has to defend his exclusive right to use his image or else risk losing exclusive rights to use his image?

[stkelly52]

I am sure that is exactly what he is doing. I just doubt that he has any chance to win, espeically in China where when you join the national team you are that team's property.

[sterlingice]

Wow- someone actually using the legal system for something other than personal gain. I'm shocked.

SI

[Coffee Warlord]

Yep. The irony is, it came from someone who isn't even an american citizen.

[tucker342]

I know man, it's a first...

[Maple Leafs]

Originally posted by sterlingice
Wow- someone actually using the legal system for something other than personal gain. I'm shocked.

The media don't understand the kinds of problems and pressures 12 cents come wit'

[JeeberD]

Originally posted by SkyDog
Doesn't coca-cola mean "bite the wax tadpole" in Chinese?

From Snopes.com:

Claim: Coca-Cola's initial transliteration of their name into Chinese produced a rendering whose meaning was "bite the wax tadpole."

Status: Not quite.

Origins: When Coca-Cola first entered the Chinese market in 1928, they had no official representation of their name in Mandarin. They needed to find four Chinese characters whose pronunciations approximated the sounds "ko-ka-ko-la" without producing a nonsensical or adverse meaning when strung together as a written phrase. (Written Chinese employs about 40,000 different characters, of which about 200 are pronounced with sounds that could be used in forming the name "ko-ka-ko-la.") While Coca-Cola was searching for a satisfactory combination of symbols to represent their name, Chinese shopkeepers created signs that combined characters whose pronunciations formed the string "ko-ka-ko-la," but they did so with no regard for the meanings of the written phrases they formed in doing so. The character for wax, pronounced "la," was used in many of these signs, resulting in strings that sounded like "ko-ka-ko-la" when pronounced but conveyed nonsensical meanings such as "female horse fastened with wax," "wax-flattened mare," or "bite the wax tadpole" when read.

Coca-Cola had to avoid using many of the 200 symbols available for forming "ko-ka-ko-la" because of their meanings, including all of the characters pronounced "la." They compromised by opting for the character lê, meaning "joy," and approximately pronounced as "ler." The transliteration of the name 'Coca-Cola' they finally settled on used the following characters:




This representation literally translated as "to allow the mouth to be able to rejoice," but it acceptably represented the concept of "something palatable from which one receives pleasure." It was the real thing, with no wax tadpoles or female horses, and Coca-Cola registered it as its Chinese trademark in 1928.

Both this advertising tale and the apocryphal story about the Chevy Nova's sales failure in Spanish-speaking countries are often cited as examples of the hubris of American corporations who fail to take cultural differences (specifically language use) into account when marketing their products in foreign countries. Both examples are untrue, and in this case the claim is especially egregious, as few companies can match Coca-Cola's amazing history of successfully adapting their product and marketing techniques to meet the demands of a wide variety of global markets.

[kcchief19]

Originally posted by sterlingice
Wow- someone actually using the legal system for something other than personal gain. I'm shocked.

SI

This is all about personal gain. And this lawsuit has nothing to do with protecting his image. It has to do with Pepsi calling up Yao and telling him to sue Coke. Pepsi paid a hell of a lot more to sign up Yao than Coke did to sign the Chinese National Team and Pepsi is pissed that Coke found a loophole to beat them at their own game. Pepsi is trying to protect their product.

I can't imagine that Chinese law offers Yao any protection, and I'm pretty sure that he signed away marketing rights when he signed up to play on the national team.

[sterlingice]

Originally posted by kcchief19
This is all about personal gain. And this lawsuit has nothing to do with protecting his image. It has to do with Pepsi calling up Yao and telling him to sue Coke. Pepsi paid a hell of a lot more to sign up Yao than Coke did to sign the Chinese National Team and Pepsi is pissed that Coke found a loophole to beat them at their own game. Pepsi is trying to protect their product.

I can't imagine that Chinese law offers Yao any protection, and I'm pretty sure that he signed away marketing rights when he signed up to play on the national team.

I'm not saying this isn't out of the goodness of his heart, but he isn't suing Coke for ten million bucks or anything. He just doesn't want them using his image when another company is willing to pay him more. This seems like an actual legit lawsuit: protecting your image so you can sell it to another company. If this isn't what lawsuits were intended for, what is?

SI