A Chinese court has ordered three defendants to pay up to $1.5m in damages for copying New Balance’s slanting “N” logo, in a rare trademark victory, the US footwear brand has said. A court in the eastern city of Suzhou ruled last week that the defendants had infringed New Balance’s “unique decoration rights,” and ordered them to stop producing or selling shoes with variations of the logo, the Financial Times reports. The ruling comes as the US pressures Beijing to take more action on suspected intellectual property theft by Chinese companies, though administration officials have complained more about enforced technology transfer arrangements than trademark infringements. Last year former basketball player Michael Jordan successfully stopped a Chinese sportswear company from using a translation of his surname on their apparel, in what was seen as a landmark verdict because it overturned the general precedent in China that whoever registers a trademark first has a right to it.