/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/53330503/GettyImages_476585156.0.jpg)
Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.
Ivanka Trump is having a moment. Her father is the President of the United States, but she’s making plenty of her own news, thanks to the boycott against her brand, the boycott against that boycott, and the new national pastime: guessing just how influential she is within her father’s administration.
There’s also been plenty of hubbub overseas, specifically in China, where businesses are noticing the first daughter’s potential — or that of her name, at least.
According to the South China Morning Post, there have been some 65 applications filed to the national trademark office to use the name “Ivanka” on clothing, makeup, alcohol, wallpaper — even sanitary pads.
Based on information the Chinese paper found from the Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry & Commerce, one Beijing-based weight loss company filed ten different trademark applications for “Ivanka” makeup and nutritional supplements. Another application, from a company called the Fujian Yingjie Commodity Company, was for “Ivanka” sanitary napkins. About 40 other Chinese companies that make apparel, makeup, and underwear registered their company names using the Chinese characters of Ivanka’s name.
Chinese regulations allow businesses to use the actual names of foreigners, or the name as a translation, according to the Morning Post, which has caused plenty of conflict. A Chinese shoe company spent years pumping out shoes with Michael Jordan’s photo and name in Chinese before a court finally ruled in Jordan’s favor. Donald Trump himself has even had to fight these trademark laws for a decade; in 2006, he applied for the rights to use his name on construction deals and spent years battling someone else who had filed for that exact trademark weeks earlier.
The Morning Post writes that Chinese interest in Ivanka kicked up after she visited DC’s Chinese embassy earlier in February for a New Year’s party with her five-year-old daughter, although some of these trademark applications were filed as early as November.
The paper is unclear if any of these Chinese Ivanka filings will actually go through. And even if they are coming from the country in which much of her fashion label’s clothing is made, this is probably not something Ivanka figured would come with her newfound international fame. Pushing clothing and jewelry is one thing; Ivanka Trump sanitary pads, though, are truly another.