DailyTech - Chinese Court Allows Apple to Continue Selling iPad in China

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Gadgets Chinese Court Allows Apple to Continue Selling iPad in China
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - February 23, 2012 10:08 AM

7 comment(s) - last by StuckMojo.. on Feb 23 at 11:16 PM

Legal saga is far from over

The legal wrangling between Apple and Chinese company Proview Technology has been going on for a while. The legal case centers on alleged copyright infringement by Apple by using the iPad name inside China. Apple has maintained all along that it owns the trademark in China, and actually bought it from Proview to use globally. Proview maintains that Apple never purchased the rights to use the iPad name inside China.

The fighting escalated to a point where Chinese authorities started making retailers pull Apple iPads off store shelves and there was a threat of import and export ban on the iPad from China. That ban would have effectively blocked global sales of the iPad.

The Shanghai court has now denied Proview's request for an injunction on imports and exports of the Apple iPad inside China. The decision certainly gives Apple breathing room to continue to fight Proview in court.

With an import/export ban held off for at least a while, attention moves back to the appeal Apple filed after Chinese courts originally ruled in Proview's favor in previous weeks. The legal battle started back in 2009 and shows no signs of ending anytime soon.

Ren Wenfeng, a lawyer at Guo Ce Law Office, who was not involved with the case, stated, "It's a great help to Apple by giving it some breathing space." He continued, "But it's not clear whether Apple will eventually win the trademark infringement case in China, as the crucial thing will be the ruling by the Guangdong higher court."

China is one of Apple’s biggest growth markets and is expected to be one of the biggest markets in the world for technology moving forward. The market has huge potential for Apple and the company has three of its own branded stores in China.

Proview desires an out-of-court settlement reports Reuters.

Source: Reuters

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Trademark Troll

By Amedean on 2/23/2012 12:27:27 PM , Rating: 2

So they confirmed that Apple did buy the name from them......for every country in the world except China? Sounds like a load of B.S. if they did get paid for something. Seriously, why make an emphasis on an ENGLISH brand name in JUST China?!

Did they plan this little trick to extort for money, highly likely IMO.

RE: Trademark Troll

By Solandri on 2/23/2012 1:33:20 PM , Rating: 3

My understanding of what happened is that:

- Proview held the iPad trademark around the world.
- It created a Taiwanese subsidiary and gave it the worldwide iPad trademark, but not the iPad trademark in China.
- Apple negotiated with the subsidary and bought what it thought was worldwide ownership of the trademark.
- Apple started making and selling iPads, including in China.
- The parent company (Proview) said, waitasec, we still own the iPad trademark in China.

From what I've read from following this case, it sounds like it was just a bunch of small mistakes on everyone's part, no dirty tricks. The folks at the Taiwanese subsidiary thought they owned the worldwide iPad trademark, including in China (AFAIK, Proview wasn't using it). Apple failed to do its due diligence and took it on the word of the subsidiary that they owned the trademark worldwide. And when the subsidiary reported in to Proview HQ in China, someone there dropped the ball or didn't know that the subsidiary didn't own the trademark in China.

Of course that makes it a fortuitous accident for Proview. How they deal with it will tell us how trollish they are being. If trademark law in China works like it does in the U.S., then Proview had no choice but to sue Apple to stop it from selling iPads. In the U.S., you have to vigorously defend your trademarks. If you don't, the court can use that as justification to strip them from you.

OTOH if Proview is asking Apple for a bajillion gazillion dollars for the China rights, then yeah they're being a troll.

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RE: Trademark Troll

By Solandri on 2/23/2012 1:39:30 PM , Rating: 2

Also, I think the Chinese court made the right call. AFAIK, Proview is not using the iPad name on any of its current products. So it is not suffering any immediate harm from Apple using the name, and there is no reason to block iPad sales in China at this time.

The hope would be that both companies can come to an amicable agreement to buy/license the name. And a preliminary injunction would interfere with those negotiations.

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RE: Trademark Troll

By Cheesew1z69 on 2/23/2012 2:02:47 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Proview is not using the iPad name on any of its current products.

AFAIK, they are.

Parent

RE: Trademark Troll

By masamasa on 2/23/2012 6:00:07 PM , Rating: 2

China needs to first address the internal problem of stolen IP, trademarks, product design, etc. that is rampant before they even consider enforcing this in their court system. If they handle this fairly it will reflect well on them. If handled poorly trust, which is already in the toilet, will decline even further and indicate serious protectionism.

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Don't know anything about how difficult this would be

By cruisin3style on 2/23/2012 3:11:22 PM , Rating: 2

but reading the article I couldn't help but think someone in China realized Apple would just pack up and move to another country Amazon style, and stopped the import/export ban.