The Washington Times astounds with Kung fu monks fight for trademark:
Don't mess with the monks. The monks of the Shaolin Temple want the world to back off a little. And they're hardly the sort of monks you want to agitate.No word on whether the style of the actions will be Crane, Dragon, Panther, Snake, Tiger, or Drunken Monkey.
With the claw of international commerce at its door, the Buddhist temple with the martial-arts tradition made famous by dozens of kung fu movies is fighting back - and not with its hands and feet - to safeguard the Shaolin trademark from opportunistic marketers.
"It is our unshirkable historical responsibility to protect and rejuvenate the culture of Shaolin," said Shi Yongxin, the abbot of Shaolin Temple, quoted by the official Xinhua news agency.
In recent months, the temple in central China's Henan province has been trying to register "Shaolin" and "Shaolin Temple" as trademarks with the government's General Administration for Industry and Commerce. It also has set up a company, Henan Shaolin Temple Industrial Development Ltd. Co., to safeguard the temple's name and ban its "abusive use" in commercial activities.
"To those who abuse the name for commercial purposes, we're going to take appropriate actions," said Qin Daliang, the new consortium's general manager.
