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Apple Could Lose $1.6 Billion In iPad Lawsuit
redletterdave writes "Proview Technology, which currently uses the 'iPad' name on several of its products including computer monitors, stands to win up to $1.6 billion and an apology from Apple for allegedly infringing upon Proview's trademarked name to use on its bestselling tablet. Proview International, which owns subsidiaries Proview Technology in Shenzhen and Proview Electronics in Taiwan, originally registered the name 'iPad' in Taiwan in 2000 and mainland China in 2001. Proview eventually sued Apple in 2011, and even though the Cupertino-based company retaliated with a counter-suit of its own, Apple lost the case in local Chinese courts. Depending on the court's findings, Apple could be fined anywhere from $38 million to the $1.6 billion that Proview is seeking. In addition to the money, Proview also wants Apple to apologize. 'We have prepared well for a long-term legal battle,' said one of Proview's lawyers."
Not that $1.6 billion would hurt them much, but all they'd have to do is threaten to stop selling the iPad in China. At that point, the government will just make Proview go away.
... and they'd have a better case as they're not just, arm, squatting on the name.
Or perhaps they did, and decided that it did not matter?
I think that's more likely. If Steve wants to use a name, he'll use it, and leave it to the lawyers sort out the mess later. It's not the first time, and won't be the last.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
Ah.. ha.. an American company lost in Chinese court to a Chinese company? A Chinese company that Apple paid for the trademark... yeah... never saw that one coming...
Actually, if you read the piece, they bought the name off the company before they started marketing the iPad, but now the company is coming back and claiming that Apple only purchased the name for use outside China. So either they did a real dumb, or this company is trying to use local corruption to shake money out of a foreign company that they backstabed and are trying to double dip on the deal.
Apple supposedly purchase the trademark in 2009 from Proview, but it appears that they may have bought it from their Taiwanese counterparts, which the Chinese portion is using to its advantage. China being China, they are choosing to side with the Chinese-based business.
If China awards the company anything remotely close to $1 billion, then I hope Apple pulls out of China. Wishful thinking as it is, it would be interesting to watch. I also hope all such companies fail, but that's pretty obvious.
I can assure you, it will be the last for him.
all your iPad are belong to us!
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
The only rethinking will be to contemplate whether to swallow or not...
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
shh.. you'll offend the entire corporate world, whose livelihoods depend on trademarks, patents, copyright, etc. (as well as violation of all of these)
what, did you think that companies actually made money out of innovation nowadays?
Let Apple taste some of their medicine.
We're going to need to increase the dosage dramatically if we want them to start paying attention.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
$1.6 Billion payment to Proview = Chinese Government Kickback.
Of course my babelfish may be horked.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
It's definitely the latter. They pulled the same stunt when they released the iPhone, a name already belonging to Cisco/Linksys.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_iPhone#Apple_iPhone_and_trademark_dispute
You need to read the history on this one before commenting. It's not a simple matter. In this case, Apple bought the mark from an intermediary who bought the global rights from Proview (Taiwan). Apple claims they bought the rights outright, Proview claims that the china rights were held by a second subsidiary, Proview (Shenzhen)
From http://www.marbridgeconsulting.com/marbridgedaily/archive/article/53231/update_apple_appeals_ipad_trademark_lawsuit#When:12:00:00Z
Apple laid forth a number of views in its appeal, including that the case should be adjudged according to the laws of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; that Proview (Shenzhen) had given written authorization for Proview International Holdings' Taiwan subsidiary, Proview Electronic, to sign a trademark transfer agreement, under the principle of unnamed agency, meaning that all iPad-related trademarks should be considered by the court to have already been transferred by Proview (Shenzhen) to Apple. Apple will also name Proview Electronic as a defendant in the case.
China government is there to protect Chinese IP and US government is here to protect US IP. Nothing will change.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
No... Chinese gov't protects the Chinese and the US gov't protects the top 1% of shareholders who import the Chinese crap. Don't start thinking that the government protects US IP or US people in general. They don't do that.
Not till Apple introduces the new 21 inch Max-iPad.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
There are two companies. They paid for use of the trademark from one based out of Tiawan. The Chinese arm of the company is filing the lawsuit. Not sure witch is the parent company. I would assume the Tiawan based one since that is who Apple paid. China does not reconize Tiawan as a seperate country. So there may be some politics involved in this dispute.
In what way are they the same country?
Taiwan is either a Chinese province in rebellion or a Chinese government in exile, depending on who you're talking to. For all practical purposes the rest of the world treats them as two independent sovereign nations, but the Chinese, whether they be ROC or PROC, don't see themselves that way.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
It's a rather interesting question. How hard is it to come up with a name that is meaning neutral in all languages and isn't trademarked/copyrighted/used ANYWHERE in the world?
I recently worked on a US-centric software release. US trade and service marks were registered. A month after release I found somebody developing a competing program with almost exactly the same name, based in Europe.
What should happen next?
And like McIntosh Laboratory, Cisco's iPhone, and the way the Mighty Mouse turned into the Magic Mouse. It's hard to feel sorry for Apple when they keep making the same class of mistake.
It's like two guys in a bar fighting over the ugliest chick.
Apple could have picked a million better names that weren't trademarked.
Whoever picked IPad should be shot, if their still alive.
Ya know, I don't know which is worse, a name THAT lame was already called or if they nail Apple we may be looking at iTab or iSlate or iMove or some such shit.
Seriously what is it with corps and fucked up names for products? you have Apple putting i on everything, Intel with core i followed by some number that don't tell me shit without a translation table, AMD tossing Phenom and Athlon and Sempron for a letter followed again by some number that don't tell me shit without a translation table, hell they don't even have the simple "X(number of cores)" anymore, its too damned confusing!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
...you don't know how much the legal decisions are based on the rule of law, or based on corruption.
And this is different from here in America how, exactly?
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
Surely, if Proview is established as the owner of the trademark within China, then the iPads being produced in China by Foxcon are counterfeit items. Could that be the basis for an injunction banning the export of these items?
That would be an excessively heavy hammer to bash an enormous settlement out of Apple.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
Possibly. Both Maxipads and iPads are used by cunts.
Life was much easier back in the day with my zip drive, voodoo 3, and Pentium 2 MMX overdrive. That thing had loads of EDO RAM. Adding the Kittyhawk was just overkill, but I'd like to think the Diamond Stealth 64 ensured that "outside" was just a concept. Poor bastard down the street had an Audrey 2000, and my brother got my old Sinclair 1000! (lol!)
Still far superior to the Adam though....
You joke but you have to admit during the MHz wars things were easier to track, faster was better and the PR rating would give you a pretty good idea when it came to AMD VS Intel. Hell look at the old Athlon and Phenom, Athlon was the budget chip, phenom the more high end, the number by the X told you how many cores and faster was better, simple really.
Now good luck telling shit without a lookup table! Quick tell me what an A4-3300 is? did you say a quad core? WRONG its a dual, WTF? Quick what features separate the i3 2100 from the i5 2500? Does either of those tell you jack shit without a lookup table? NO. Hell the only nice thing i can say is at least AMD isn't playing feature roulette, unlike Intel which you can't tell which ones support which features without a chart, even the bobcat at least does support all the features.
Frankly i think the whole thing is designed to fuck customers, that is the only reason I can think of. it makes it damned near impossible to do a simple side by side comparison of anything, either from different manufacturers or even of the same manufacturers products, so the ONLY thing people can do is "higher priced must be better" which of course don't really tell you shit except it costs more.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I like to think that the 'i' is short for idiot, all such products are much more amusingly named when you mentally replace the i with that.
I've yet to come up with anything globally satisfactory for terms beginning with e though, like e-mail, but I suspect when I do, it'll make ASUS' EeePCs the most amusingly named product going with said word repeated 3 times.
if they nail Apple we may be looking at iTab or iSlate or iMove or some such shit.
They can name it in honour of the legal team suing Samsung. The Apple sTab.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."