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    Company claiming iPad trademark sues Apple in US

    By ELAINE KURTENBACH | Associated Press – Fri, Feb 24, 2012

    SHANGHAI (AP) — Apple Inc. is facing yet another challenge to its use of the iPad trademark in China — this time in a court in California.

    Proview Electronics Co., a unit of Proview International Holdings, which claims it owns the iPad name, filed a lawsuit against Apple's use of the trademark in mainland China at the Santa Clara Superior Court on Feb. 17, Proview spokeswoman Alice Wang said Friday.

    An attempt by Proview to win an injunction to stop Apple from selling iPads in Shanghai was foiled this week when a court there rejected the case pending the resolution of a similar lawsuit in a higher court in China.

    Apple had no immediate comment on the California lawsuit.

    The companies are feuding over whether Proview sold the mainland Chinese rights to the iPad trademark to Apple in a 2009 deal.

    Proview claims the sale of the iPad China trademark to a company representing Apple by its Taiwan affiliate in 2009 was invalid. Proview has not challenged the sale of other worldwide rights to the iPad trademark to Apple in the 35,000 British pound ($55,000) deal.

    Apple contends that Proview included the mainland Chinese trademark in the sale and says it violated that contract by failing to transfer the trademark rights to Apple.

    Proview's lawyers have indicated their company is open to settling its claim to the trademark. In the meantime, the two sides have engaged in legal skirmishes in Hong Kong and in southern China's Guangdong province, where Proview's main office is based.

    There, lower courts have sided with Proview in two cases. The Guangdong High Court is due to hear Apple's appeal of the first decision on Feb. 29.

    Proview International Holdings was once one of the world's leading makers of computer monitors, with sales in 50 countries and more than 7,000 employees in factories in Taiwan and China.

    But the company's main focus on manufacturing cathode-ray tube displays — the boxy monitors that have since been replaced by LCD screens — appears to have hurt its performance.

    The company's website now says it makes LCD displays, LCD televisions and LED lights. But Proview is deep in debt and faces its shares being removed from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

    The company developed what it said was an "iFamily" range of products, including iTV, iWeb and iPAD. It launched its iPAD in 2000, but unlike Apple's 2010 tablet computer, Proview's earlier version failed to hit the market sweet spot that might have made it a hit.

    Proview has sought to have commercial authorities in many Chinese cities stop sales of Apple's iPad. In suspending the case being heard in Shanghai, Pudong District Court rejected a demand for an injunction to stop iPad sales in Shanghai, where Apple has three big stores.

    ___

    Researcher Fu Ting contributed to this report.

    ___

    Follow Elaine Kurtenbach on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ekurtenbachsh

     

    19 comments

    • BigI
      BigI  •  Hilo, Hawaii  •  3 mths ago
      now the shoe is on the other foot. China alows for ounterfit movies, music, software, and hard goods and does nothing when the US asks their government to crack down and to stop it, and the promotion of it, but now the shoe is on the other foot and they want the US to do something for them about this.......... ahhh hahahhahhahaa suck it! what comes around goes around..... theres the proof. ahhh hahahahhaa lollolollollollol
      • TomP
        TomP 2 mths ago
        Not exactly, Proview doesn't own the trademark in the US.
    • Orang-Utan
      Orang-Utan  •  Santa Rosa, California  •  3 mths ago
      It should be tossed out, until the Chinese make restitution for the sheet rock fiasco and other toxic produts sold in the U.S..
    • Tina
      Tina  •  Kumamoto-shi, Japan  •  3 mths ago
      "Wow now China shows concern about trademark and copyright laws? yeah yeah only when it suits them best, like when a Chinese company can get money out of it, they dont care about foreign companies loosing money to their copies."
    • Dave
      Dave  •  San Francisco, California  •  3 mths ago
      idon't care
      • Micky
        Micky 3 mths ago
        Do you mean "iDon't"? Is this trademarked?
    • Dan
      Dan  •  Monroe, Louisiana  •  3 mths ago
      seems the iPAD and iPad are case sensitive suits...
      • reload
        reload 2 mths ago
        the chinese dont have caps in their writing so they wouldn't grasp the concept
    • Eric
      Eric  •  3 mths ago
      iPad? psh How did someone not own the word Apple before 1980?
      • SASman
        SASman 3 mths ago
        The Beatles own the name aApple and paid infingment in the 10's of millions; provided they did not enter the music business - later scores of millions for further in fringments.
      • SASman
        SASman 3 mths ago
        Read Obmma's copyright law for more jokes - the giving away of America.
      • Dan
        Dan 3 mths ago
        that's why you couldn't buy Beatles music at iTunes until last year when they came to an agreement over the Apple...
    • MM
      MM  •  Huntington, New York  •  2 mths ago
      To hell with china! It's time to move all the jobs out of this ungrateful country and bring them back home. Also people responsible for allowing outsourcing be punished by confiscating all of their private assets.

      it's corporate greed that is responsible for the messy state of the global economy. I say - it's time to cut the ceo's huge salaries by about 90 % as well as their shareholders' earnings by as much.
    • Kensal
      Kensal  •  London, United Kingdom  •  3 mths ago
      although the lawsuits a joke and its obvious proview is trying to get as much money out of apple to prevent its own self from becoming bankrupt and obsolete...apple cant afford to let the chinese market slip from its grasp...so unfortunatley has to waste some of its time on this subject...if proview win then yeah they may get a piece of cash from it but it wont stop apple...they'll either come to some agreement or pay some small royalties to the affected countries....surprised apple let this slip if they are found guilty.
      • zo
        zo 3 mths ago
        Chinese will go nowhere without US companies building their stuff over there and US customers buying chineese made sh_it. That's why all this debt is a joke, it's a bluff Chinese will never call
    • Jason
      Jason  •  3 mths ago
      I say if we can't sell it in China, we don't manufacture it in China.
    • skull
      skull  •  3 mths ago
      how come i didnt see this when the first ipad was launched?
    • renter
      renter  •  2 mths ago
      This is a joke. Chinese are dishonest. Always have been and always will be. I hope the case is found for Apple and the company is wiped out.
    • AlfredC
      AlfredC  •  3 mths ago
      I never heard any ipads made in china... i did heard ipeds..
    • reload
      reload  •  Hacienda Heights, California  •  2 mths ago
      I think this barely-alive company is still going thanks to Apple Ipad. their I.P.A.D sucks.
    • ChrisT
      ChrisT  •  3 mths ago
      What gets me is Apple came out with the iMac in 1998, 2 years before this company supposedly created it's family of iProducts. So where did these folks get the idea for iAnything?
    • HBH
      HBH  •  3 mths ago
      They should save a bunch of lawyers fees and just call the #$%$ thing Appletab or some such in China. People will still buy it.
    • R.T. Arcand
      R.T. Arcand  •  Minneapolis, Minnesota  •  3 mths ago
      This is a dispute between two Chinese companies. Keep it out of the US courts.
    • BC
      BC  •  3 mths ago
      Simple solution: Change to different similar name. People want to buy apple products.
    • mr t
      mr t  •  3 mths ago
      ROFLMAO.....I love it....Hey apple how much you spent on litigation now???? And how much has it hit the savings you thought you were going to get when you moved everything to your commie friends country??? I hope they keep it up till you try and bring it all back to the USA. maybe then....Maybe......I might think about buying an apple.
    • Sean
      Sean  •  Irving, Texas  •  3 mths ago
      I fail to see how the court in California has any jurisdiction over a matter in China. This case will fail.
     Post a comment
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