Businessman Zhan Baosheng, owner of a skincare company, quickly quickly filed Tesla trademarks and registered tesla.cn and teslamotors.cn in 2006 after the automaker unveiled its Roadster.
The California-based company initially offered to buy the trademark rights for approximately two million yuan (~$325,000 USD), however Zhan held his ground and eventually filed a lawsuit seeking 23.9 million yuan (~$3.9 million USD).
The legal battle has now been settled out of court, for an undisclosed sum, eliminating the need for Tesla to establish separate branding in one of its key markets.
“Collectively, these actions remove any doubt with respect to Tesla’s undisputed rights to its trademarks in China,” Tesla spokeswoman Liz Jarvis-Shean said in a statement published by Bloomberg.
Despite a few local launch hiccups for the Model S, the company expects its China sales to catch up to US shipments sometime in 2015.
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