Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple Reportedly Offers Proview $16 Million for iPad Trademark

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,553
30,881



Following a claim earlier this week that Apple had made its first settlement offer to Proview in the ongoing dispute over the "iPad" trademark in China, The Next Web now points to a report from Sina.com [Google translation] claiming that Apple's offer amounted to 100 million yuan, equivalent to $16 million.

proview_logo.jpg

That marks a substantial increase over the $55,000 purchase price in the original deal between Proview's Taiwanese arm and a dummy corporation set by Apple to acquire the trademark in a number of countries. Proview later claimed that the Chinese rights to the trademark were owned by its Chinese subsidiary and that the Taiwanese arm consequently could not have sold them to Apple.

Proview has been seeking as much as $2 billion in its lawsuits against Apple over the trademark, but today's report notes that Proview has gone bankrupt with $400 million owed to its creditors, speculating that that amount would be the minimum it the company would accept from Apple. It seems extremely unlikely that Apple would increase its offer to that level, and so it remains to be seen how the talks and court case will play out.

Article Link: Apple Reportedly Offers Proview $16 Million for iPad Trademark
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/05/10/apple-reportedly-offers-proview-16-million-for-ipad-trademark/
Rocketman

Rocketman

macrumors 603
Dec 2, 2001
6,191
1,186
Claremont, The intellectual capitol of the world.
Apple is not a welfare state to save Proview from itself.

BTW it is Proview claiming there is a $16m offer on the table, not Apple.

Apple can go to the bankruptcy judge, point out the lawsuit has large fixed costs to persue and uncertain benefits if they even prevail which is unlikely given the existing rulings in Taiwan and California, and buy the asset of the trademark and lawsuit for $0.50 on the condition Apple does not seek legal costs from the bankrupt estate so what few actual assets that do exist go to the top of list secure creditors. The downside is there could be a ruling of fraud, priority payment of damages as a penalty, and the BK estate could be further diminished for valid secured creditors.
 
Last edited:
SAdProZ

SAdProZ

macrumors 6502a
Mar 19, 2005
940
925
Game theory at its finest. Apple offering 16 million is a fun move, and says something about their strategy here. Now knowing that Proview is 400 million in debt means they are in a desperate position here, which Apple can leverage. Ooooohhh snap!
 
W

womble2k2

macrumors regular
Apr 1, 2009
214
0
London
I'm sure ProViews creditors will push to have this offer accepted so that they get at least 4% of owed money returned. This is a lot better than chasing a higher amount whilst running up significant legal costs.

If they don't accept the offer, then Apple will just continue to let the legal course continue.
 
charlituna

charlituna

macrumors G3
Jun 11, 2008
9,636
816
Los Angeles, CA
Rocketman said:
Apple is not a welfare state to save Proview from itself.

BTW it is Proview claiming there is a $16m offer on the table, not Apple.
Click to expand...

Yep, every one of these claims is from Proview, who have a vested interest in such claims because it makes it look like they are winning.

No way would Apple offer them $16 million. half a million would be more than Apple would likely offer them. They claim to have documents showing that Proview not only never said that China wasn't in the deal, they actually said it was. That means that Proview was playing fraud games. At least one court already sided with Apple on these claims and said that Proview should transfer the ownership and basically apologize to Apple.
 
PracticalMac

PracticalMac

macrumors 68030
Jan 22, 2009
2,857
5,242
Houston, TX
Extortion at its finest!

Rome fell because of all its lawyers (yes, Roman Empire had lawyers).

(Couple million what I would give).

BTW, what if ProView goes bankrupt and goes away? Suit will die?
 
QCassidy352

QCassidy352

macrumors G5
Mar 20, 2003
12,028
6,036
Bay Area
PracticalMac said:
Extortion at its finest!

Rome fell because of all its lawyers (yes, Roman Empire had lawyers).

(Couple million what I would give).

BTW, what if ProView goes bankrupt and goes away? Suit will die?
Click to expand...

Rome fell because the Romans got soft and lazy and stopped worrying about threats.

Interesting litigation
 
parish

parish

macrumors 65816
Apr 14, 2009
1,082
2
Wilts., UK
Apple shouldn't pay this. They should just rename the iPad in China to iPaid (with the second 'I' in pale grey) :)

BTW, the main cause of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking a 0 in their number system, they had no way to indicate the successful termination of their C programs :p
 
nagromme

nagromme

macrumors G5
May 2, 2002
12,546
1,196
BornAgainApple said:
Give 'em an inch, they'll take a mile ;)
Click to expand...

Exactly. They’ll be back in six months saying “Apple KNEW they were paying us $16 mil for nothing, and they willfully kept using the iPad trademark anyway! Seize all iPads! We demand 25% of Apple profits as is our right! We created the iPAD name when we made our iMac clone and iPAD was the closest Apple-rip-off we could come up with! And once we have our 25%—make that 50%—then THIS time, we will honor our original deal. Simon says!”
 
bwillwall

bwillwall

Suspended
Dec 24, 2009
1,031
802
Pro view is a stupid liar company Apple doesn't owe them **** I hope they are lying again so they can get in a bunch of trouble for being *******s.
 
CylonGlitch

CylonGlitch

macrumors 68030
Jul 7, 2009
2,956
268
Nashville
nickn said:
So it's ok for a company to violate trademarks in your opinion?
Click to expand...

Nick, if you read all of the documentation on the court case, you'll quickly see that it is not really about trademark violation but did Proview lie about what they were doing. There is a lot of shady stuff going on from the Proview side, and I couldn't find anything on the Apple side that looks "shady" besides using a shell company to buy the iPad name. And this really isn't my opinion either, if you read the ruling from the HK court, you'll see that they found that not only does Apple own the Trademarks that they legitimately purchased, but that Proview IS acting in a very deceptive manor and in a potentially criminal way.

Quick synopsys of what's going on :
  1. Apple Shell company wants to buy iPad trademark from Proview for the HK, Taiwan, and China markets.
  2. Apple contacts Proview-China and makes an offer that they initially accept.
  3. Proview-China says they don't own the rights to it, Proview-Taiwan does. (Email paper chain shows this)
  4. Apple makes arrangements with Proview-Taiwan for all three licenses, and gets them signed off by Proview-Taiwan by (I think the authorization was signed by the CEO or someone on the board of directors).
  5. Proview transfers rights to Apple . . . except for an issue with the bankruptcy court in China.
  6. Later Proview-China claims that Proview-Taiwan didn't have the rights to sell of the trademark.
  7. The person in Proview-Taiwan who authorized the sale of the Proview-China trademark ** IS ** the Proview-China CEO (he has multiple roles within the Proview organization).

That Last bullet point is the real kicker. The same guy who has the authority in two different divisions to sell the iPad trademarks, sells it from one division and then claims that HE shouldn't have sold it from the other.

Sorry, it's extortion at it's finest.
 
CylonGlitch

CylonGlitch

macrumors 68030
Jul 7, 2009
2,956
268
Nashville
nickn said:
If that is truly the case then yes, I will agree with you. Under those circumstances I have to wonder how proview has even managed to get thus far.
Click to expand...

You can read all the documents online about the HK case; the result of that was quite interesting. Lots of information has been put online because that case is over and I think it all became part of public record.

The only reason they are still fighting now is that Proview is using the Bankruptcy courts of China to cover their butt as they try to extort money from Apple.
 
kiljoy616

kiljoy616

macrumors 68000
Apr 17, 2008
1,795
0
USA
When did it become Apple's job to bail out failed companies. Is this guy nuts, the fools who gave him the money should be wanting his head for been such a bad leader.
 
T

thurst

macrumors newbie
May 10, 2012
1
0
An inexpensive solution...

I would just market the iPad in China as the iPod Touch 10 and let Proview dry up and blow away.
 
A

AlterZgo

macrumors regular
Mar 17, 2011
112
90
While I think Proview is 100% wrong and owed nothing, I can't help feeling this is what Apple gets for using such a crappy name like "iPad". It sounded like a feminine hygiene product 2 yrs ago and it still sounds lame today.
 
samh004

samh004

macrumors 68020
Mar 1, 2004
2,222
141
Australia
nickn said:
If that is truly the case then yes, I will agree with you. Under those circumstances I have to wonder how proview has even managed to get thus far.
Click to expand...

It’s China, whole different ball game and not willing to play by the rules unless they’re the ones being ripped off.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom