“You’ve seen the text of the Chinese court decision that sided with Apple in its dispute with Proview Technology over rights to the iPad trademark in China,” John Paczkowski reports for AllThingsD. “Now, here’s some of the supporting documentation.”
“Quick recap: Apple says it bought Proview Technology’s worldwide rights to the iPad trademark in 10 different countries several years ago, and that Proview refuses to honor their agreement,” Paczkowski reports. “Proview says Apple bought the rights from an affiliate that didn’t own them.”
Paczkowski reports, “Additional documents obtained by AllThingD include email from a representative of Proview Technology — not the other affiliate — to Apple’s representative regarding the deal, as well as a copy of the agreement itself.”
See the evidence in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Motiv” for the heads up.]
ProView’s bacon is cooked. They don’t have a legal leg to stand on.
Like that matters in china
it might. The Chinese make a ton of money plus a lot of good will and prestige from manufacturing in the country. If they were to lose Apple it would look very bad, especially under fraudulent circumstances.
I expect Foxcon is pulling some weight behind the scenes here.
I’m not a lawyer and I don’t even play one on TV, but I’d say that these documents pretty much are the end of it all for this case. ProView should just shut up and get out of the way!
Go here and you can read the decision from The High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Court of First Instance
http://allthingsd.com/20120216/heres-the-chinese-court-ruling-backing-apple-in-ipad-trademark-tiff/?reflink=ATD_yahoo_ticker
Hong Kong is not China, though. It is governed separately from the mainland with distinct laws and jurisdiction. A mainland court system decision would take precedence over this.
According to the December 23, 2009 Proview contract signed by Mai Shih Hung, their legal counsel:
This Agreement is governed exclusively by the laws of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction arising from or in connection with this agreement.
The 8 jurisdictions listed in the Schedule A document as relinquishing the ‘Trade Mark’ iPad are:
• CTM (presumably referring to ‘Community Trade Mark’)
• South Korea
• Mexico
• China
• Singapore
• Indonesia
• Thailand
• Vietnam
IOW Proview sold the ‘Trade Mark’ iPad. It’s gone. They have no claim to ownership. So how did this incident occur? Is this simply a shakedown to squeeze out some more money from Apple after the fact? Hmm. Sounds like a crime to me. Sounds like Apple can sue Proview for breach of contract! I hope they do.
China: Criminal Nation
I’m not saying Apple isn’t right and Proview isn’t wrong. But we both know that binding contracts can and have been overruled by the courts, even in western countries. China has no problem ignoring facts.
Apple (via its subsidiary) was bona fide (good faith) purchaser.
The evidence is clearly on Apple’s side! Proview Taiwan produced documents to show that they owned the trademark in China when they made the sale, and not Proview Shenzhen. And the sales agreement clearly listed the trademark China as one of the countries involved in the sale. Proview is trying to rip Apple off in broad daylight.
I hear from friends in China that the judges in China are not necessarily legally trained, nor even very highly educated. I wonder if those judges sitting on this case had the necessary expertise to sift through this complicated case, when they made the judgment against Apple in Shenzhen.
This is China we’re talking about here. You don’t need proof of something to make it true, all you need is the government or one of its agencies to look at a white sheet of paper and declare that it’s black. That makes it black.
Quoting from the letter dated Friday, November 20, 2009:
As you know my company is an international company and it always keep to its promise.
Oops. Apparently not.