“A Chinese tech firm that says it owns the iPad trademark, plans to seek a ban on exports of Apple Inc’s computer tablets from China, a lawyer for the company said,” Artemisia Ng and Melanie Lee report for Reuters.
“The Chinese firm Proview Technology (Shenzhen) Co Ltd is petitioning Chinese customs to stop shipments of Apple’s popular iPads in and out of China, though the customs have not responded to its request, lawyer Xie Xianghui told Asian Legal Business, a Thomson Reuters publication,” Ng and Lee report. “Apple lost a case to Proview Technology (Shenzhen) in a Shenzhen court in southern China late last year when the court agreed that Proview owned the iPad trademark. Apple has appealed the decision and a final hearing is due to start in the southern Guangdong High Court on Feb 29. This court’s decision will be final under the Chinese legal process.”
Ng and Lee report, “Proview’s latest salvo comes a day after media reports that authorities in some Chinese cities had ordered retailers to stop selling Apple’s iPad due to the dispute. Apple said it had bought the worldwide rights to the trademark long ago. ‘We bought Proview’s worldwide rights to the iPad trademark in 10 different countries several years ago. Proview refuses to honor their agreement with Apple in China and a Hong Kong court has sided with Apple in this matter,’ an Apple spokeswoman said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Obviously, Proview and their shysters are a couple egg rolls short of a pu pu platter.
How ironic being China is the home of intellectual property theft and counterfeit products. Is there a government official or court in China that possesses even an ounce of cohones?
Or an ounce of integrity?
Yes, all of a sudden the chinese are so worries about intellectual property infringement. Maybe they will also start seizing all those fake iPhones an and iPods that I see in every store when I visit China
Looks like China just gave the answer to the question posed in the republican presidential campaign.
“What would it take to bring back those manufacturing jobs assembling iPhones and iPads to the USA?
No, they answered the question “What would it take to bring send those manufacturing jobs assembling iPhones and iPads to Brazil?”
Seems like Apple’s been preparing for something like this.
Cook is no joke.
… only real question here.
Apple is being burned by its Asian connections. It may well be time they moved some of their production to some other area – Brazil would be good for FoxConn – and maybe added another supplier (or two, or three?). China, Korea, Japan … they would all lose some of their power over Apple if at least half of each product were manufactured in another area. And, sure … the US might even be one site for building a portion of some products.
Apple is an expert at bending suppliers over a chair for lessons in “co-operation”, they need to protect themselves from taking similar lessons FROM their suppliers.
So now China faces the prospect of half a million people suddenly losing their jobs overnight. That will cause significant problems for the local government. Do they have enough police to stop the riots when there is no work?
How about Foxxcon sends a few dozen workers over to this Proview group of crooks and have a “discussion” with them?
Why not send half a million? 😉
I’ll say it again…
dump the silly “i’s”, so 90’s hipster days.
Apple is a brand, creating another brand with i only creates confusion.
Hereon, name everything with Apple preceding them.
Pad etc.
its easy to see that you just do not understand. This is about WAY MORE than some brand name. A company sells the name then decides that it wants 1,600,000,000 dollars to sell it again. This in a country where theft of ideas happens every day and night. Copies of hardware and software occur with the blessing of the the government.
Like I said…. way more than a name.
Has anybody seen my cat?
Sweet and Sour or Kung Pao?
I prefer ‘house special’ fried rice.
I don’t pretend to understand copyright law, but would it be enough for Apple to replace the packaging in China, so that the boxes read “Apple iPad” instead of “iPad”? Seems like that would avoid the “confusion” with Proview’s iPad (if they have one).
Mark, they were just cyber-squating on the name. They’ve already sold their rights to it to Apple.
Hiring a hit man would solve this thing in a hurry.
Traditionally, that role has been filled by the US military.
Good.
In this case, just give Foxxcon a bonus to “handle” the problem!
According to the sales contract from the very company lying that they own the “iPad” name, Apple need do nothing-at-all. Apple own the trademark “iPad” outright INSIDE CHINA. This bullshit is nothing more than deceit from a deceitful company. Meanwhile, Apple gets screwed over waiting for justice to be done by the corrupt and unjust Chinese government.
China: Suicidal Criminal Nation.
Get the hell out of their Apple.
Grammar Police:
Bad spelling day. Apologies.
Turn “Get the hell out of their Apple”
Into “Get the hell out of THERE Apple”
Thank you for your patience. 😉
though the customs have not responded to its request
Presumably because the customs officials are still curled up on the floor laughing. Yeah, we’re going to kill a bazillion-dollar export business because of a trademark that’s only valid within China, if even there.
——RM
+1
Laughing, all right, saying oh yes we will kill it for sure, and damage the economy, even though the beneficiary is this one guy who even we think is a scuzzball. AH HA HA!
C’mon, Apple. No more excuses.
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/02/apple-china-seamicro-nbs/?intcid=story_ribbon
“Jennifer Read calls the Apples and the HPs and the Ciscos “the Goliath Fringe.” They’re in Asia for the long haul, and they account of such a large portion of the market. But they’re not the norm. It makes sense for them to be in Asia not only because of the volume of machines they’re dealing with but because so many of the machines’ components originate in Asia.”
I’m sorry – what was your point?
Let’s be realistic. We are still living in the age of the Slave Wage Labor Movement. No way are Apple’s manufacturing jobs coming back to the USA without a loud chorus of ranting customers complaining about higher prices. Not gonna happen.
Also, Apple chose China not just for dirt wages, but for the Chinese culture’s dedication to hard work. Imagine Apple moving manufacturing to Mexico where the wages could be just as cheap. Not gonna happen. Why? You’re not going to get dedicated work out of many members of that culture. Let’s be realistic.
Brazil has a reasonably productive culture. It’s not as Type A as most Asian countries, but it’s not 24/7 siesta time there either. Let’s be realistic.
Meanwhile, China is a CRIMINAL NATION both in culture and in government. Of course these scum screw over everyone. Get the hell out of their Apple!
Grammar Police:
Was “Get the hell out of their Apple!”
Should be “Get the hell out of THERE Apple!” 😀
I’m not so sure Apple bases business decisions on stereotypes.
Maybe they’re basing business decisions not exactly on stereotypes, but on what might be similar – perceptions of Mexican high tech. They are very good at what they do south o’ Juarez, but maybe not Tim Cook’s cup o’ tea.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/12/mexico-border-dotted-with-string-of-f-ing-cool-high-tech-drug-tunnels/
Do you have any conception of the scale that apple works in? There aren’t the resources in the US for Apple to do what seamicro is. Jobs. Gone. End. (heh, both Jobs and jobs are gone).
Proview and Chinese government just wants to collect millions and billion of dollars from apple. Can apple easily change the trademark “iPad” to something else? to avoid fines.
Chinese government will resolve this mess for Apple if the courts continue it. They know better than to bite the hand that feeds them.
Apple may well be pushed into developing robotic assembly systems for its products if issues regarding workforces continue creating difficulties for Apple.
Robotic assembly could be performed in multiple plants around the world, so that localised problems, such as political, legal, meteorological or wars would only affect a relatively small proportion of the production.
Obviously people will be needed to assemble the robots until such time as robots can build other robots.
… and then SkyNet became self-aware, and so, we fought the battle.
i hear you can make the robots in China.
I have this great idea: FRACK CHINA!
No iPads for you, deceitful rectal pores. You brought it on yourselves.
HEY APPLE! Ready to get the HELL out of the hell hole called China yet?
Not a huge fan of the government there and lack of freedom, but there are many nice things you can say about China. We could learn a lot from that country.
Agreed! The woman are very beautiful in China!
Ahhh, finally a comment I can live with!
Even if it were true that Proview owns “iPad” within China and Apple owns the trademark everywhere else in the world, then why would that prevent *exports* of the Apple iPad manufactured in China? That makes no sense at all. If the Apple iPads are not sold in China, then they are not infringing on Proview’s dubious claim.