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Apple Makes Settlement Offer in iPad Trademark Case, But 'Big Gap' Remains
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Because blaming an entire country for the asshatness of a few is such a good idea, and not racist in any way.
China has WAY more over the US than the other way around.
this company is clearly defrauding apple.
they sold the rights and have a judge in their pocket imo. Apple had proof of the purchase and that company had years to make a claim. Instead they wait until apple has made billions from the device and then they cry foul.
they sold the rights and have a judge in their pocket imo. Apple had proof of the purchase and that company had years to make a claim. Instead they wait until apple has made billions from the device and then they cry foul.
Again - I ask - do you know this for a fact? Do you know when they began pursuing Apple with this? Do you know for a fact they didn't contact Apple before it went to the courts?
Or are you just making assumptions. Sincerely asking.
I'd just pull the iPad from China. Sell it in surrounding markets and make sure the Chinese people know why this is happening.
Business and government are too tightly linked in China. This whole thing is a scam to get money out of Apple. Real shame too as Apple is honestly trying to do fair business in China.
I wouldn't move manufacturing or stop sales of other products....just the iPad....until enough backlash comes at the government and defunct entity ProView from the people. They'll still be able to get iPads.
Business and government are too tightly linked in China. This whole thing is a scam to get money out of Apple. Real shame too as Apple is honestly trying to do fair business in China.
I wouldn't move manufacturing or stop sales of other products....just the iPad....until enough backlash comes at the government and defunct entity ProView from the people. They'll still be able to get iPads.
Pad? iTab? etc... 
Brief Introduction to Xinhuanet
I read all reports by Xinhuanet with a grain of salt the size of Hong Kong
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/special/2011-11/28/c_131274495.htm
FROM THEIR WEBSITE:
Sponsored by the Xinhua News Agency, Xinhuanet is an important central news service-oriented website, an important information organ of the central government, and an important platform for building up China's online international communication capacity.
Established on November 7, 1997, as an online news provider of the Xinhua News Agency, it was officially named Xinhuanet on March 10, 2000 and began around-the-clock news release with leading online public opinion at home and setting a good image of China abroad as its main task.
Starting from 2010, Xinhuanet began transforming itself from a governmental cultural institution to an enterprise, operating in the entity of the Xinhua Network Corporation Limited. In May 2011, the Xinhuanet Corporation LTD. was officially established.
Xinhuanet releases news items 24 hours daily in eight languages, namely, Chinese (simplified and traditional), English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Japanese and Tibetan, by using multimedia communication means, such as texts, photos, graphics, audio messages, video, blogs, podcast, microblog, short messages, and cell phone news. As a result, it can reach directly and instantly its audiences at home and abroad at crucial moments of major news coverage and breaking events.
I read all reports by Xinhuanet with a grain of salt the size of Hong Kong
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/special/2011-11/28/c_131274495.htm
FROM THEIR WEBSITE:
Sponsored by the Xinhua News Agency, Xinhuanet is an important central news service-oriented website, an important information organ of the central government, and an important platform for building up China's online international communication capacity.
Established on November 7, 1997, as an online news provider of the Xinhua News Agency, it was officially named Xinhuanet on March 10, 2000 and began around-the-clock news release with leading online public opinion at home and setting a good image of China abroad as its main task.
Starting from 2010, Xinhuanet began transforming itself from a governmental cultural institution to an enterprise, operating in the entity of the Xinhua Network Corporation Limited. In May 2011, the Xinhuanet Corporation LTD. was officially established.
Xinhuanet releases news items 24 hours daily in eight languages, namely, Chinese (simplified and traditional), English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Japanese and Tibetan, by using multimedia communication means, such as texts, photos, graphics, audio messages, video, blogs, podcast, microblog, short messages, and cell phone news. As a result, it can reach directly and instantly its audiences at home and abroad at crucial moments of major news coverage and breaking events.
Offer: "You hand over the trademark now, and we won't do everything we can to put you into jail for fraud". I assume the "gap" mentioned is $1,999,945,000.
Just call it iPod XL.
They don't have a judge in their pocket. The problem is that you can't bribe a judge if there is someone involved, like Apple, who can throw any amount of money at the problem, and find evidence of the bribe, which may very well mean in China that the judge ends up with a noose around his neck.
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It's a reasonable explantion that fits the available facts. Do you have an alternate theory? If so:
Why would Proview go back and review existing agreements with Apple, unless it were to find a loophole? And why would they do this unless the hope was to extract HUGE amounts of money? And why would they have expectations of making HUGE amounts of money unless the iPad was already successful?
It's also entirely possible that the parent corporation, after discovering that Apple was producing something called the iPad did all that back research and discovered something was amiss. You know - it wasn't APPLE that bought the original trademark. They did it via a dummy corporation to save some money (obviously).
Again - I am not weighing in on judgement of who did what and who is to blame. My original comment was directed at someone who just said that the corporation should just hand over their trademark because APPLE made the name famous. That's just a ridiculous statement.
Yes, they bought it under another name, happens all the time in business because when someone knows that Apple, Microsoft, Disney, etc. wants to buy something, they get dollar signs (or yen signs or euro signs) in their eyes. Once the sale was done, it was no longer a secret.
The contract, from all reports, describes the rights as worldwide, ProView Taiwan is owned by ProView and so the contract signed would be binding and if Proview Taiwan is signing contracts it's not supposed to, that's a management issue for ProView.
As for the "famous" statement - it has to do with the value of the trademark. If it wasn't attached to Apple's iPad, if it was for an as-seen-on-tv heating pad, the iPad trademark would have been worth the 55K that ProView was paid for it (if that much). If Apple had acted in bad faith, used the trademark before in good faith purchasing the trademark, maybe you can say ProView was still entitled to the value that Apple had brought to the trademark - but not even ProView is saying that Apple didn't think they were buying the rights for China as well. ProView got a fair price for the trademark at the time Apple bought it, and using this back door to demand more is nothing more than extortion.
Proview is pushing for a country-wide import and export ban on the iPad, presumably if Apple does not pay for the trademark. In theory, this sanction would force a move of manufacturing out of China. Significant infrastructure and expertise has been built up to supply iPhones and iPads from China. This would take time to rebuild elsewhere. As Apple often can hardly make enough units to meet demand, I suspect Samsung would be happy to contract for any spare specialized manufacturing capacity left behind by Apple to make more and better clones.
In my opinion, If Apple were to further geographically diversify its manufacturing away from China, then would opt to do it over a period of years. As the Chinese courts are currently saying that Proview is the rightful owner of the iPad term, the Proview dispute has to be settled to avoid sanction.
Because the Chinese judiciary is not independent of the government and this is a high profile case, I think Apple will come out on top and pay far less than the $2B asked. It has to appear that due process works in China, and for players smaller than Apple to feel safe to continue pouring in the investment money.
There is ZERO chance that Proview would succeed on the export ban no matter how they push. Trademark lawsuits are based on "consumers would be confusing our product for theirs", and not even ProView is claiming that Apple doesn't have the trademark for everywhere outside of Mainland China. So there's no trademark violation in iPads being sold in the U.S., Germany, France, and even Taiwan and Hong Kong. There's not a shadow of a legal leg to stand on. As for the extra-legal aspects - as much as a court might want to favor the home guys, such a decision would set a precedent that would cause severe damage to China as a manufacturing source for the world's products (which is a major factor in their economic development). It's just not going to happen.
Worst possible situation would be iPads removed from the market until they can be rebranded. That's not just worst possible for Apple, but for ProView as well - it wound end any possibility of getting any money out of Apple to pay the company's debts and keep the company going, and if I was a manager looking for a new job, "made iPads unavailable in China" isn't something I'd want to go in with.
My guess is that Apple is going along with the court requirements to mediate.
In the longer run, I'd change the name for the Chinese market to Apple Pad or something before I would pay anywhere near 2 billion...
In the longer run, I'd change the name for the Chinese market to Apple Pad or something before I would pay anywhere near 2 billion...
Apple should just sue Proview for suing them. They'd have a much better reason.
I'm in favor of what some other guy said: Make the iPads cost more in China to cover it.
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Aren't the Chinese racist against Americans because they sell their products for more here? No, I think it's because it costs them more to sell here. It costs Apple more to sell to China, so why not make it cost more?
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Well, they could just try to ignore the lawsuit, but that would end up annoying the Chinese government and resulting in Apple losing their market in China.
The best plan is to raise the price of the iPad in China (because thanks to China, it costs them more to make it), or change the name in China.
Raising the price actually seems fair. I mean, Chinese companies raise the price of their products in America all the time because it costs them more to sell them here (thanks to taxes and shipping). It costs Apple more to sell to China because of Proview suing them.
I'm in favor of what some other guy said: Make the iPads cost more in China to cover it.
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Aren't the Chinese racist against Americans because they sell their products for more here? No, I think it's because it costs them more to sell here. It costs Apple more to sell to China, so why not make it cost more?
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Well, they could just try to ignore the lawsuit, but that would end up annoying the Chinese government and resulting in Apple losing their market in China.
The best plan is to raise the price of the iPad in China (because thanks to China, it costs them more to make it), or change the name in China.
Raising the price actually seems fair. I mean, Chinese companies raise the price of their products in America all the time because it costs them more to sell them here (thanks to taxes and shipping). It costs Apple more to sell to China because of Proview suing them.
Sincerely asking, Sam: Do you not know what the o in "imo" means?
Your tone belies your words.
Don't you get bored with this passive agressive BS?
No they should hand it over because they sold it to Apple. And Apple has the documentation to back it up. The parent company led Apple to believe that China was part of the deal and they had the rights to include it. And they after they found out it was Apple they refused to do the transfer.
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The first second that IPAD started doing business the web went nuts with rumors that it was a cover for Apple. They would have found those rumors in one Google and could have asked for 20 times what they did and likely gotten it.
This I agree with 100%. There's a huge difference between saying that they should hand over the trademark because (the poster) believes Apple is in the right and that the sale was legit
vs
XXX should hand over the trademark because Apple made the name (more) famous than company xxx
That doesn't matter - a trademark is a trademark whether it is popular or not. The fact Proview used the iPad trademark on their monitors for the last 10 years means it' not just a trival trademark but one that the company actively uses too.
Pay the settlement, then change the name on the product, only in China, and sell it for a huge premium to cover the settlement, again only in China.
All users in China with have an "iPaid" to remind them of their corrupt government and sew the seeds to make some changes.
All users in China with have an "iPaid" to remind them of their corrupt government and sew the seeds to make some changes.