Apple Settles Chinese 'iPad' Trademark Dispute with Proview for $60 Million

iMikeT said:

Apple paying these bozos any amount of money is an outrage, an outrage, I tell you, an outrage!

Yeah, I know that Apple can more than afford it but these clowns at Proview made a deal to give up the iPad trademark long before the iPad's release and therefore really don't have a claim to it now. The original deal should have sealed it long ago and these guys deserve nothing.

$60 million because they feel shafted after the iPad's success and for this to go away on Apple's end, pluh-ese!

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I fully agree, but as a shareholder I would rather Apple pay $60M to open up iPad sales in China next quarter than risk $96M in bond money to activate the injunction on the Galaxy Nexus which is 8 months old (ancient in Android years). Only advantage to Gnex injunction is that Apple should be able to get the same injunction on the GS III based on the ruling.

Looking forward to millions of main-land Chinese customers buying the iPad.

Apple should increase the selling prices of their products in China..

Crazy. Corrupted chinese judicial system raped Apple.

And now Apple, sue the parent company for selling rights to the name that they apparently didn't have the rights to.

For $120 million.

$60 million is pocket change for apple.

What a disgusting world we live in when a name costs $60 million. People dying of hunger all over the world.

iMikeT said:

Bottom line is that Apple could have used that $60 million in other ways, like building a factory in the USA..

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Factory to build what? There's not much you can do with $60m. It cost Intel and other fab companies $5-10 billion just to build a state of the art chip foundry.

It cost $ 60 million or more just to get the process started, but Apple'd need to spend $10 or more billion of dollars to start building one factory. Why would they do that when they can just pay less to have others build it for them?

iMikeT said:

Bottom line is that Apple could have used that $60 million in other ways, like building a factory in the USA.

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Apple could build 100 SMT lines in the USA, which could assemble 70 million iPhone boards per year.

Edit) For idiots downvoting;
5 machines per line x 20 sec per board = 180 board per line / hour
12 hours effective operation per day x 350 days x 100 lines = 75 million boards per year.
(2 persons for operation per line + 2 persons for assembly per line) x 100 lines = 400 employees.
800 employees for 2 shift x $54000 = $42 millions per year (including electric+water+insurance+401k+...)
$43 millions / 70 million boards = 61 cents per board.

iMikeT said:

Bottom line is that Apple could have used that $60 million in other ways, like building a factory in the USA.





Apple should have gone through with burying these opportunists and left them owing that $60 million.

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It's obvious that delaying the introduction of the iPad into China was going to cost Apple a lot more money. It may not have been right to pay them off, but in business, sometimes you have to accept that fairness isn't always the biggest concern.

Nbd. Apple can just win its 60 million back by suing Microsoft for the surface touch cover.

Thieves...

Pocket change....

TIMELINE:

Jan 2000: Proview Technology Co, Ltd, which is based in the southern city of Shenzhen, registered the iPad trademark. ..the rights to its use in China

Late 2010: [ 10 years later ] Apple's use of the iPad name (in China)

Now, unless Proview had insider knowledge of an "iPad" in the works at Apple, I'd say they had every legitimate right under trademark law to defend their trademark/IP within China.

You want to play (and make bucket loads of money) in someone else's patch? then you have to pay out. And play by their rules.

In the big picture, $60M is peanuts for . Everything is relative.

Macman1993 said:

Idiots? They just got $60 Million for something they already sold, genius is more like it.

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Even idiots can luck into money, especially in this litigious world.

I wonder what they will burn that 60m on?

sparkie7 said:

TIMELINE:

Jan 2000: Proview Technology Co, Ltd, which is based in the southern city of Shenzhen, registered the iPad trademark. ..the rights to its use in China

Late 2010: [ 10 years later ] Apple's use of the iPad name (in China)

Now, unless Proview had insider knowledge of an "iPad" in the works at Apple, I'd say they had every legitimate right under trademark law to defend their trademark/IP within China.

You want to play (and make bucket loads of money) in someone else's patch? then you have to pay out.

In the big picture, $60M is peanuts for . Everything is relative.

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Indeed ... now to set to thinking what apple will be releasing 10 years from now and trademark that ... and not get into mad debt in the meantime .

pixelss said:

$60 million is pocket change for apple.

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Doesn't change the fact that Proview is a joke, and so are the courts.

MartiNZ said:

Indeed ... now to set to thinking what apple will be releasing 10 years from now and trademark that ... and not get into mad debt in the meantime .

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I'd be interested to know if ProView had a legitimate trading business using the iPad name. ie. actually marketing and actively selling products/services from 2000 onwards. And had a brand/market presence in China.

Otherwise it could be ruled by some courts in the Western hemisphere at least that its right to legitimacy could be argued. Nevertheless it seems that it was sheer luck/coincidence, or a leak within ? Who knows..

shartypants said:

No wonder Proview is bankrupt,

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Not anymore.

(That comment was wrong. Proview's creditors (Bank of China and MinSheng Bank) are just waiting for the funds to come in)

Radio said:

I still think the iPad is a stupid name for the device.

Dont tell me you didn't laugh when jobs pulled out the iPad and it looked like an oversized iPhone.

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Nope, didn't laugh.

sparkie7 said:

Now, unless Proview had insider knowledge of an "iPad" in the works at Apple, I'd say they had every legitimate right under trademark law to defend their trademark/IP within China.

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Sure. And if it was me who did registered the 'iPad' in China I would had done exactly the same. And so would anybody else.

realeric said:

Corrupted chinese judicial system raped Apple.

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You have evidence that bribes were administered?

Cubeeless said:

Apple should increase the selling prices of their products in China..

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1. Apple will get the 60m back in a day once the iPad 3 comes out in China.

2. A higher price in China means that Chinese people will line up at YOUR Apple store and carry them to China, hence increase delivery time in YOUR country.

irDigital0l said:

Apple just needs to look under its couch for $60 million change.

Then when the new iPhone comes out, it replaces this in about the first hour.

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Basically yes. Which is probably why they agreed to just settle and be done with this crap. It's still way less than the billions Proview was demanding and they will make it back in a week, two tops just in iPads.

I don't care for this type of deal at all.... since proview clearly had no intent on making $60 million from an actual iPad of any sort... but whatever.

At least Apple's lucky enough they've got the cash to settle it and move on!

DisMyMac said:

You have evidence that bribes were administered?

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lol... The trademark had already been sold to Apple in 2009. Chinese now sell it again.