Where is the Champs Elysees: Paris, a Shenzhen suburb or a high-rise apartment building in Shanghai?
The Intermediate Court of Shanghai began considering this question on Tuesday, after Shenzhen Meidi Property filed a lawsuit against two rivals in Shanghai, accusing them of infringing its copyright for use of the French and Chinese names of the most famous street in Paris.
According to a Meidi spokeswoman, in the late 1990s the company built in Shenzhen's Fuda district an upmarket residential area which it called Champs Elysees Garden.
The project later won awards for its architectural design.
'We chose the name because of the location and design of the project,' she said.
Encouraged by its success, Meidi in 1999 applied to the National Trademark Bureau in Beijing for the right to use the Champs Elysees name in French and Chinese for 36 types of real estate.
It obtained the copyright in 2001 and planned to use the name all over the mainland.
