Court delays Apple Proview ruling
'IPAD' trademark still up for grabs in China
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The never-ending battle over rights to the IPAD trademark is set to drag on even longer after news emerged that a Chinese court will delay its ruling while settlement talks between Apple and Proview continue.
The Higher People’s Court of Guangdong in southern China will not make a decision on Apple’s appeal against a previous ruling in favour of failed monitor vendor Proview as long as both parties continue to talk, a court official told Bloomberg.
Both sides have been cagey over the status of the discussions, with most of the info coming from Proview.
The last we heard was in early May, when Proview lawyer Xie Xianghui was quoted by several sources as saying the court was trying to mediate a deal, although he refused to reveal exactly what terms were being discussed.
If you haven’t heard by now, Proview won the original dispute back in December 2011, and Apple lodged its appeal last February.
Cupertino says it bought the rights to use the IPAD name in China fair and square from Proview Taiwan, but the monitor firm says that its Shenzhen affiliate is the only company that had the legal right to sell the name for use in China.
All the pressure is on the fruity toy maker to settle the deal, given China represents a colossal market and the dispute is holding back its efforts to start flogging the new fondleslab.
Apple also seems to be gearing up to launch more of its retail stores in the People’s Republic so a deal is in its best interests, but it doesn’t want to appear to have given in to Proview’s demands too easily as there are fears this could spark a series of similar trademark disputes with local firms. ®
COMMENTS
TBH I don't see anything wrong with that, I think when it comes to negotiation its only natural to hold your cards close to your chest and try to not give anything away - who ever is (or appears to be) most willing to walk away gets the best deal.
It's why we have middlemen and brokers etc (well one of the reasons anyway).
A (kinda stretched) analogy:
If I pay someone to wash my car for £10 and they later find out I'm a millionaire, they don't get pissed that they didn't charge me £200.
<< Pirate, cos someone is clearly trying to fleece someone else, just not sure who is the victim!
Re: Worthless
Exactly right. I guess some people hate Apple so much they think the only reason the product was successful was because it was called the iPad. If it was called the iSlate or iTab, I believe it would have been just as successful.
I remember when it came out a lot of people hated the name, and made jokes comparing to Stayfree maxipads. Now some people think it is so valuable that Apple totally screwed this poor Chinese company out of billions. It is worth billions because of Apple. It was worth essentially nothing to the Chinese company since they had already stopped selling products under that name, they were happy to get the $35K, but now think they can take advantage of the rather corrupt state of the Chinese judicial system to get more.
Re: Worthless
No doubt Apple made the trademark very, very valuable. But that is not the point, AC.
Apple owns the trademark all over the world, but not in China. Preview owns it there. That's why they had their dummy corporation buy the trademark from Proview.
Any value the trademark has or doesn't have is irrelevant to this case. Only the validity of the contract for sale.
Sorry. :o)
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