TRADEMARK FOR ZIDANE'S HEAD-BUTT

Zinedine Zidane (http://www.zidane.fr/homepage.html), a recently retired French soccer player, has been consistently ranked as one of the top soccer players of all time. He announced earlier this spring that he would retire after the 2006 World Cup (http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/). The French soccer team advanced to the finals eventually losing the final game to Italy. However, while Zidane had a great career, he recently gained much negative attention for his behavior during a recent soccer match (http://www.picciottisoccer.135.it/). In the last match of his career, Zidane head-butted Italian opponent Marco Materazzi in the chest after the two players exchanged words during the 110th minute of the World Cup final game. Allegedly, Materazzi instigated the confrontation by making defamatory comments towards Zidane.

Two days after the World Cup Final, Zhao Xiaokai, a Chinese entrepreneur and general manager of a sport-related company, paid 2,000 YUAN ($250.00 USD) to register the trademark in China of a silhouette of Zidane head-butting Italian defender Marco Materazzi in the chest for shoes, hats and beer products. While some think that the mark is unregisterable because it is another's image and/or likeness, Zhao claims that the silhouette does not involve anyone's image or likeness because the trademark only includes a silhouette of the players.

Currently, Zhao is inviting bids of one million YUAN ($125,400 USD) for the rights to the trademark. Two beer companies have reportedly contacted Zhao in an attempt to buy rights to the mark. Time will tell if Zhao actually profits from his trademark filing.