Sometimes, you just can't make them up.

A small Chinese electric car firm is currently seeking permission to name its new electric car technology 'Snowden'--named for the former U.S. intelligence contractor now in political asylum in Russia, after leaking top-secret mass surveillance details to the press.

In a shameless but amusing attempt to ride the publicity of the Edward Snowden situation, electric car firm Hong Yuan Lan Xiang (HYLX) wants to trademark the name 'Snowden' for its top-secret electric car tech currently in development.

According to the International Business Times, HYLX says the new technology will "change the market" for environmentally-friendly cars.

The company's manager and trademark applicant, Zhu Hefeng, said that cars equipped with the new technology should be available by the end of the year. It's likely to cover various areas of electric vehicle tech, from removable batteries, through quicker charging speeds, to the remodeling of existing vehicles into electric cars.

Whether the products will be quite as revolutionary as HYLX claims and whether they'll be released under the Snowden banner are currently two separate issues.

The latter hinges on whether the Chinese government grands HYLX the patent name, given the Snowden case's "sensitive" nature--particularly as the man himself camped out in Hong Kong for several months.

Various other products are already sold under the Snowden name in China, but China's law allows the same trademark to be registered under different sectors. Either way, the trademark application could still take some time--from a year to 15 months, meaning the tech may arrive before it even has a name.

We fully expect HYLX to name its first electric car using the tech, 'Prism'...

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