On 20 March 2020, the China National Intellectual Property
Administration ("CNIPA") issued
decisions to invalidate two of Facebook's trade mark
registrations in Class 42. This marks a huge setback for the social
media company in a more than decade-long dispute with individual
trade mark owner, Dr. Su Kaiming (a medical doctor), in China.
It is common knowledge that Facebook's social media platform
has been blocked in China since July 2009, in addition to bans in
Iran, Syria, and North Korea. What is less known, is that despite
not being able to operate in China, Facebook is still one of the
country's top advertising platforms. According to CNBC, Nasdaq
and The Motley Fool, citing research by the Pivotal Research
Group,"Facebook sells more than USD5 billion a year worth
of ad space to Chinese businesses and government agencies looking
to promote their messages abroad, analysts estimate. That makes
China Facebook's biggest country for revenue after the United
States,
