“A court in southern China has rejected a lawsuit by Apple Inc, accusing a Chinese technology company of infringing its iPad trademark, a newspaper reported on Tuesday, the latest move in a protracted tug-of-war over the name,” Twinnie Siu and Melanie Lee report for Reuters.
“The Intermediate People’s Court in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen rejected Apple’s lawsuit against Proview Technology (Shenzhen),” Siu and Lee report. “Proview, it said, lawfully registered the iPad trademark as long ago as 2000 for products in a number of countries including China, the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper reported, citing court documents.”
Siu and Lee report, “Caixin Online reported in October that Proview was also taking legal action, seeking 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) in compensation from Apple for copyright infringement.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Who presides over The Intermediate People’s Court and is a Judge Wapner mask involved?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lava_Head_UK” for the heads up.]
Shocking!
Not.
That’s the other side of doing business in China… the playing field will always be tilted in favor of the hometown team, as will the officiating and rules. If the local courts rule in favor of the $1.5 billion in damages (give me a break… how was Proview damaged?) it will amount to extortion of Apple as a cost of doing business in China.
Time to increase production in Brazil.
Not good… I guess you can’t claim it’s unfair or that they haven’t protected their trade make or something like that since this is a Chinese court and I don’t think we can expect them to be fair or follow western standards.
Anyway I think think that Apple’s infringement can be 1.5 billion dollars. No one, at least outside USA, knew the word iPad before Apple introduced the device. And i dont see how registering it back in 2000 could help them. The trademark iPad was not worth anything back them I would assume. But again, this is a Chinese court, It can’t be trusted. The corruption is total and transparency 0. The government and court often sided with Chinese companies to benefit china it seems. Not saying that just because this case went against Apple.
In the end Apple might have to buy the trade mark. If apple iPads get banned in china I’m sure the black market would explode. Nothing can stop iPad.
I mean… I DON’T think that Apple’s infringement can be worth 1.5 billion dollars.
The term iPad was around long before apple looked at it. Proview is just one of the first companies that can stand up to Apples legal team.
If Proview did in fact register iPad for a computing-related device as far back as 2000 (predating even the iPod, though of course not iMac), then Apple is SOL here, and probably would be in a US court too.
OTOH, the $1.5B countersuit should not succeed in court.
Exactly, iPad wasn’t the best of names but that’s a personal opinion. However, what is not a personal opinion is that Apple should have checked the availability of that name prior to the unveiling of it’s much anticipated tablet. Pick a few dozen names internally, secure/register the names worldwide, apply the names to your secret devices during product introductions.
For love of all things non-childish, can we finally move away from the barrage of silly names starting with an ‘i’ please? Apple is a brand, use that, no need to hog up a silly letter that no company should have a right over. 90’s calling, they want their iHipster back.
it’s = its. Sorry.
Interesting that a “court” in a land of cheats & thieves doesn’t understand theft & infringement. Very puzzling.
Oh, they UNDERSTAND it very well.
Wait, their registration and use of the wor “iPad” predates Apple’s by several years. Who is infringing upon whom here?
The Chinese are nothing but thorough. They think far ahead. Back in 2000 they registered all manner of names for example: iMouse, iCowDog, iPrinter, iMP3, iScreen, iKeyboard, iRouter, iUSB, iWebCam and everything else they could find. Theres even iSteve, iJobs,iIve and iCook not to mention iBush and iMao.
A chink in Apple’s armor?
I see what you did there. Amusing. I like it.
The Kenyan community organizer jackass is a coward when confronting China. Worse than Jimmy asswipe Carter. We will be rid of that fkup in less than a year, and the new Republican President will kick slope ass.
Now… there’s a Neanderthal way of looking at it. Good one, Jethro!
Lets see now, one is I-PAD and the other is iPad. They are totally different. The “i” stands for internet. What the hell does “I” stand for?
Apparently Apple legal thinks they are close enough.
I – don’t have a clue
Interesting: PROVIEW is the name of a US RAM-based database company. And a very good one too.
It’s ProVue… a great company that makes a wonderful database.
http://www.kakatech.com/97inch-android-30-nvdia-china-ipad-tablet-pc-d91/#more-7136
size – shape – styling – all apple inspired
registering a name in the year 2000 with nothing to show is BS.
Yeah right! And if Apple decided to call it the ShitPad and had major success with it, some chinese company would somehow be able to prove in a chinese court that they had registered the name already years before Apple even knew what they were doing. Give me a break. In general, no western company or government, in fact anyone should take any crap whatsoever from a communist toilet dump like China. Sorry, nothing against the poor people that have to live there, but the rest, F. O. A. D.
HAHAHA… So much for IP Protection in China … *snickers*
Outrageous. Intolerable. But seems that nobody objects to their premium-priced products being manufactured by Chinese cheap labour.
Better to go to India or other places that respect international rules of law and behavior than deal with China.
The Chinese mentality will not change anytime soon if ever.
And on the home court, Apple just lost the request for an injunction against the Korean company Samsung, as decided by the Korean-American, Judge Lucy Koh. Hmmmm, I wonder if the Judge in China was an Amerian-Chinese? Oh, that’s right, there is no such thing! WAKE UP AMERICA, if there are any of you left!
Gee, I thought this was MacDailyNews, not a chapter of Bigots Unanimous….
How about waiting to see the facts before jumping on the “they’re Chinese so they must be cheats” bandwagon? It won’t be hard to prove whether these trademarks were registered 11 years ago or not, so I’m sure this will be settled fairly quickly.
Almost all of us here are Apple fans but that doesn’t mean that anyone who competes against them or who might find themselves on the other side of a court case are bad.
Just become some Chinese companies have done the wrong thing, doesn’t mean all Chinese companies are dishonest.
Or should we start judging all US companies by the standards of Enron, Union Carbide, Lehman Brothers, etc?