“Apple Inc has paid $60 million to Proview Technology (Shenzhen) to end a dispute over the iPad trademark in China that saw the world’s most valuable technology company engaged in a protracted legal tussle with a near-bankrupt Chinese firm,” Melanie Lee and Samuel Shen report for Reuters.
“The court-mediated settlement, announced on the website of the Higher People’s Court of Guangdong province, will allow Apple to get on with selling its popular tablet PC in one of its most important markets, analysts said,” Lee and Shen report. “‘The settlement is great news for Apple. It just allows them to get on with business and stop being distracted. The new iPad has been so late to the China market that if they drag it any longer, Apple will stand to lose quite a bit more,’ said Teck-Zhung Wong, a Beijing-based analyst with technology research firm IDC.”
Lee and Shen report, “Apple had said it bought ownership of the iPad trademark in various countries from Proview, once a global monitor maker, but the Chinese company argued the U.S. firm dealt with only one unit of Proview. A Chinese court ruled that Proview Technology (Shenzhen) owned the name in China. Proview, which registered the iPad trademark in China in 2001, tried in May to sue Apple in the United States, but that case was thrown out. The iPad dominates China’s tablet PC market with more than 70 percent market share.”
“For Proview – which local media had said was seeking as much as 10 billion yuan ($1.57 billion) from Apple – and its creditors, the settlement should be welcomed, some lawyers said,” Lee and Shen report. “The $60 million will be paid into a court-designated account and used to pay Proview’s creditors, said a source familiar with the situation.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Finally ended, the extortion saga has.
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