Affirmative can’t solve – most trademark trolls are in other countries and extort companies from outside of the US borders – China is worse

Trademark trolling occurs when an individual or entity registers a trademark in bad faith with no lawful intention of using the said mark. The trolls purposely try to register such marks which have garnered immense reputation and goodwill, in other jurisdictions or classes, which the owner of the mark would have likely want to register in future. Once these marks are registered, they are used as a means for extorting monetary benefits from real mark owners by ways of demanding licensing fees or initiating frivolous infringement suits. In some instances, the real mark owners have to buy their own brand rights from a troll in another country at an exorbitant fee because the troll had first registered the mark in his country. A classic example of trademark trolling is the well-publicized case dating from 2012 when US tech giant Apple Inc. had paid $60 million to Chinese firm Proview to settle a dispute involving rights to the "iPad" name. In 2009, Apple had paid a Proview Technology affiliate in Taiwan for its iPad trademarks in various countries for £35,000, assuming it covered China. However, when the iPad was introduced, Proview’s Shenzhen operation said that the rights were never transferred in China and proceeded to file a trademark infringement case against Apple and prompting authorities to start seizing iPads in February 20121. In another instance of trademark trolling, Tesla Motors Inc., the US electric car maker was forced to settle with Chinese businessman Zhan Baosheng, who had registered the “Tesla” trademark in 2006 much ahead of the automaker’s entry into the Chinese market2. he above instances demonstrate how even large multinational companies have fallen prey to the trademark trolls. These companies had no option but to pay up, as they could not afford to lose access to China’s massive market, which would have severely interrupted their operations and resulted in huge losses. Even celebrities are not immune from the perils of trademark trolling. After almost a decade, U.S. basketball legend Michael Jordan finally secured a major victory in his protracted legal battle against a Chinese sportswear company over the use of his name . Jordan had filed a lawsuit against a sportswear company called Qiaodan Sports (a transliteration of Jordan’s name). The said company had even registered trademarks for the names of his two sons, Jeffrey and Markus (Jiefuli Qiaodan and Makusi Qiaodan).