“Chinese officials face a choice in Apple’s dispute with a local company over the iPad trademark — side with a struggling entity that a court says owns the name or with a global brand that has created hundreds of thousands of jobs in China,” Joe McDonald reports for The Associated Press. “Experts say that means Beijing’s political priorities rather than the courts will settle the dispute if it escalates.”
“The dispute centers on whether Apple acquired the iPad name in China when it bought rights in various countries from a Proview affiliate in Taiwan in 2009 for 35,000 British pounds ($55,000),” McDonald reports. “Apple insists it did. But Proview, which registered the iPad trademark in China in 2001, won a ruling from a mainland Chinese court in December that it was not bound by that sale. Apple appealed. A hearing is scheduled for Feb. 29.”
McDonald reports, “‘If this becomes political — and it’s very easy to see this becoming political — then I think Apple’s chances look pretty good,’ said Stan Abrams, an American lawyer who teaches intellectual property law at Beijing’s Central University of Finance and Economics.”
Read more in the full article here.
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