Tempest in a tea plot brews

Descendants of Li Guangdi dispute use of forebear's name in trademarks, Zhang Zhao reports.

For eight consecutive days six men, most of them aged, stayed at Wang Qing's tea shop in Anxi county of Fujian province to protest the shopkeeper's registration of a trademark using the name of their ancestor Li Guangdi, who was a famous writer and high-ranking minister in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912).

Wang acquired the rights for the Li Guangdi trademark in 2006 for use on tea. Designed with Li's profile and his name in both Chinese and English, the same trademark was later registered by Wang for many other kinds of goods including food, clothes and publishing services.