Apple Could Loss Trademark “iPad” As Well As $1.6 Billion To Proview Technology In China

Apple has always been enclosed with number of legal maneuvers such as lawsuit against Samsung—for copycatting of its iPhone model—and also, the company previously legitimated to Cisco for the trademark of “iPhone”. However, Apple succeeded to win over Cisco for iPhone trademark, and also somehow in the case of Samsung. Recently, RIM was allegedly legitimated by BASIS for BBX trademark–and finally RIM had to change the name of its OS. In contrary, Proview Technology has litigated Apple this time for the infringement of the trademark name “iPad”—Proview Technology is currently using “iPad” trademark name on its several products lineup.

The situation depicts that Proview Technology could win somewhere from $38 million to $1.6 billion and also apology from Apple—which is using the trademark name in its Tablet lineups. Proview International—one of its subsidiaries “Proview Technology” in Shenzhen and other “Proview Electronics” in Taiwan—registered the trademark name “iPad” in china and Taiwan in 2000 and 2001 respectively. Apple succeeded to buy “iPad” trademark for $55,000 in 2009 by the support of the company “IP Application Development”—but the deal was validated only for Taiwan, and later chairman of Proview “Yan Rongshan” refused to say any connection of IP Application Development with Apple.

Proview’s chairman—Yan Rongshan—said, “It is arrogant of Apple to just ignore our rights and go ahead selling the iPad in this market, and we will oppose that. Besides that, we are in big financial trouble and the trademarks are a valuable asset that could help us sort out part of that trouble.”

The use trademark name by Apple has damaged to Proview’s market share especially in China and in the US. However, in October 2010, Proview  threatened to Apple to not use its trademark, otherwise, it would take legal action against the company.  The report said that Proview registered the trademark “iPad” in several countries such as china, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Mexico, and EU. After long pursuance, Proview finally sued Apple in 2011, in retaliation, Apple also counter-suited its own contention. Apple said that Cupertino, Calif. -based company was genuine owner of iPad trademark and the use of the trademark is quite ethic for the company, however, Apple failed to won the case retaliation against Proview.

Proview has filed separate lawsuits in local courts in two Chinese cities—Shenzhen and Huizhou– to withhold the selling and marketing of Apple’s iPad in the country. It’s the belief of the folks that Apple will lose its appeal there.

Apple didn’t set up any retail store until 2008 in China due to the back-and-forth of number of legal disputes. However, in 2011, Apple opened its six Apple Stores in Shanghai and Beijing—which has reportedly produced highest average revenue than its other 361 global stores. For the legal use of trademark in China, Apple needs Proview’s authorization—and it’s difficult for the company to sale its iPad in the second largest personal computer market without the settlement of the trademark.

Apple is currently busy with the assembling and marketing with its new iPad 3– which is going to be launched by the first week of March this year. Apple announced its Q1 report on January 24, the total profit of the company in this quarter was $13.1 billion–which is the equivalent to the total revenue of the company in Q4  of 2010. Apple sold 47.5 million iPads in 2011–sold 15.4 million iPads in just Q4 (calender) last year. The litigation might jeopardize the company’s upcoming Tablets sale—company is likely to soar its business in China. It’s well known that China is second largest market of the company after US and the company has clearly promulgated its strategy toward China. If company fails to win the sue, then, the company would get a huge loss  in both shipment of iPad as well as revenue from the country.

source: IBTimes