Apple Faces Potential $38 Million Fine in China as $1.6 Billion Lawsuit Over 'iPad' Trademark Proceeds

[reefoid]

Apple has absolutely nothing to worry about. When they bought the parent company, the contract would have specified that the rights to the name were given to apple. If the company did not own the rights, then the liability shifts from Apple on to the parent company that sold the rights.

Worst case scenario is that Apple gets told to stop producing iPad's for sale in China and must either buy the name, or change the name. And no, they can't just claim they want $xxx for the name, it goes off of the value of their "I-Pad" products, but that doesn't mean it will be $55,000 they bought it from the parent company at...

Eh? Apple didn't buy any company, so not sure what you mean there. I think you mean they bought the Ipad trademark, but unless you've seen that contract you have no clue as to what rights were/were not included in it.

Anyway, you're basing your assumptions on law as you know it, and unless there is a Chinese trademark expert on these forums everyone here is making wild guesses.

 

[xraydoc]

Apple has absolutely nothing to worry about. When they bought the parent company, the contract would have specified that the rights to the name were given to apple. If the company did not own the rights, then the liability shifts from Apple on to the parent company that sold the rights.

Except in China, where they'll do whatever they damned well please.

 

[ad2435]

apple pays cisco systems for the iOS trademark that cisco owns so they will have to pay money to use the iPad trademark too.

 

[shadowhawk2020]

Everyone here saying Apple should buy Proview. Doesn't Proview have to agree to be sold? Why would they with a 1.6 billion payday potentially around the corner?

I say change the name to democracy. Then all the Chinese people would want democracy...

 

[theBB]

As for the sale of the trademark, if the trademark was registered to the Chinese company (the subsidiary), and the Chinese company didn't do the deal, it's a bit like your parents selling your car. Companies may treat Chinese subsidiaries like branch offices, but they are separate legal entities, and have to follow certain laws. And there's bound to be fiddly rules about asset transfer.

That all assumes China has an independent, unbiased judicial system. Unfortunately, it does not. Thus, positive or negative, the outcome of the lawsuit will depend on factors other than what the law says and how the contract was set up.

 

[dBeats]

China wants an apology? I'm in stitches..

 

[jonnysods]

And when the country makes it difficult for Apple to produce iPads, iPods, iPhones, MacBook Airs, MacBook Pros, Apple TVs, etc., etc. in its factories... then what?

I"m going to say that China needs those things to be produced pretty badly. Foxconn is part of their bread and butter in China.

 

[kalsta]

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I'd be interested to know how many of these 'fines from governmental authorities' get handed out to Chinese companies for IP infringements.

 

[KnightWRX]

Why are people saying Apple bought Proview in Europe ? They simply acquired the rights to the iPad trademark from Proview's parent company, they didn't acquire the company itself.

And why is it that when Apple is found in infringement of someone else's IP, Apple should stick it to the entire world and do as it pleases but when someone infringes on Apple's IP, Apple has a god given right and duty to defend it till no one is left standing ?

This forum really needs to get its act together sometimes.

 

[theBB]

Apple has absolutely nothing to worry about. When they bought the parent company, the contract would have specified that the rights to the name were given to apple. If the company did not own the rights, then the liability shifts from Apple on to the parent company that sold the rights.

I doubt that. If you sell something that does not belong to you, property (intellectual or physical) does not simply revert to the buyer, with you and the real owner arguing about liability. Instead, the real owner keeps its property and the buyer is left exploring his legal options with you.

 

[eldernorm]

China, rotten to the core

That's just the fine. They are asking 1.6 billion in the lawsuit itself. I think Apple loses this one.

Apple may lose. Anything is possible. But the court just said that Proview, which illegally sold Apple the rights now has a different branch suing Apple for using the iPad name. How do we know that that branch of THE SAME COMPANY has the authority to claim the name.

Can Apple sue the parent company for 3x the amount 4 billion$ for allowing one of its sub companies to perform an illegal act???

This will be interesting.

If Apple loses this, it should consider moving mfg out of China to Brazil or such. Just a thought,

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apple pays cisco systems for the iOS trademark that cisco owns so they will have to pay money to use the iPad trademark too.

They did, to the parent company.. they used an Apple Europe branch to do the deal. Now a sub division says that the corp division did not own the name and they want the money.

I say its just totally fishy. If the fee from the subdivision was 10-20 million, OK maybe, bUt 1.2 BILLION for a name????

 

[Boatboy24]

Time to start moving production to Brazil...

 

[RalfTheDog]

Then millions of Chinese are at risk of starving. Because like it or not, China needs tech companies hiring places like Foxconn. If they try to put the screws on Apple over this, it could fall back on them hard and ripple to every US tech company that hires Foxconn etc to do their assembly.

This could be just the thing to get Apple etc to pay the price to move their business to another country. Either by staying with Foxconn's not Chinese factories or moving to something else. Perhaps banning together to build their own. Heck a combined tech lobby could perhaps get the US to drop all kinds of taxes etc in return for a group of factories that would hire welfare receivers to so this piece work for 8 hours a day. Given that welfare reformers want to make getting a job of any kind a requirement to stay on welfare for anything more than a few months, even that lobby could jump in. There could also be movements to allow temp visas for immigrant workers to come for a few months to also work (especially before big launches) etc.

China simply can't risk that. They need these jobs for their people too much

I don't think American workers can compete with highly educated workers that are willing to stand in line for a job where you are payed $ 1 per hour, effectively chained to your work station 12 hours per day for 6 or 7 days a week.

Transportation costs can't cover that kind of labor pricing gap. Apple MIGHT be able to move the jobs to India.

Apple has already branded the product worldwide in the minds of people. They should unname the device entirely.

Place an Apple logo on the device people will forever know going forward as an iPad, refer to it generically as pad, have an Apple logo on it and model numbers of course, but NO NAME, in cheeky markets.

It will work.

Device formerly known as iPad?

Karma is a bitch!

That would be India, not China.

Actually, cost of labor is just one part of the total costs. As fuel prices go up, it becomes cheaper to source locally at some point. Factor in productivity and it begins to make sense to move production closer to markets. That's China's big challenge - at some point companies will leave simply because the total costs are less elsewhere; and China will have the same employment issues other countries have faced; except their likely to have 10x as many people out of work and pissed.

That would take extreme transportation cost to compete with $1 per hour for highly skilled workers.

I wonder how this will turn out, a simple solution would be if apple buys the company suing them and fires the people responsible for the idea.

I don't think a Chinese company can be legally owned by non Chinese. The Chinese government requires Chinese companies to be owned by humans, not what they call animals.

Rename it to AmeriPad in China, and watch them bite their tongues as it becomes the #1 selling electronic device there. Everyone in China wants an AmeriPad!

Tiananmen Square pad.

 

[Plutonius]

Losing to a Chinese company in Chinese court. Who would have believed it.

Seriously, Apple should pay only if China starts ruling against all the Chinese companies that are ripping off the United States and Europe.

 

[unlinked]

Time to start moving production to Brazil...

Time to start acquiring trademarks before you start selling products methinks.

 

[mymacisnotapc]

China actually acknowledges trademarks?

Excuse me. If I want a copy watch, a copy bag, a copy T shirt or a copy iPad or iPhone for that matter where do you think these are made? Now that they feel they own a name, not a product I think this is all a bit rich. call the iPad what you want in China, one things is for sure, before it's released they will be producing fakes.

 

[Rocketman]

Unnaming would appeal to Steve's sense of "simplicity".

It beats spending a decade in court over it. They already have to litigate the past.

Our selective enforcement is better than their selective enforcement. We have more experience at it than China.

 

[RalfTheDog]

Time to start acquiring trademarks before you start selling products methinks.

They did, then a branch of the company they purchased the name from launched legal action against them. It would be like, you purchasing a car from me, then my cat reports the car stolen.

 

[cameronjpu]

Maybe not. Apple could win this, albeit perhaps out of China, by proving that the parent company was not upfront about not owning the rights in China when they sold the "global" rights to IPAD (which then transferred it to Apple). If the language says 'global' and not 'everywhere in the world that we own' then Apple could have a stand.

The trouble is that the Chinese courts are more likely to side with their own. It's like filing a patent suit in East Texas. Even if you are wrong, you'll like win because that district favors the folks that claim they were infringed upon. Which is why so many companies file there

The great thing about courts in China (everything in China) is that they can be pressured politically to fall one way or the other. So the question is, which side does the Chinese Communist Party fall on? My guess is Apple will have no trouble getting this to go away with what amounts to a slap on the wrist, as China knows just how good Apple is to it.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

Then millions of Chinese are at risk of starving. Because like it or not, China needs tech companies hiring places like Foxconn. If they try to put the screws on Apple over this, it could fall back on them hard and ripple to every US tech company that hires Foxconn etc to do their assembly.

This could be just the thing to get Apple etc to pay the price to move their business to another country. Either by staying with Foxconn's not Chinese factories or moving to something else. Perhaps banning together to build their own. Heck a combined tech lobby could perhaps get the US to drop all kinds of taxes etc in return for a group of factories that would hire welfare receivers to so this piece work for 8 hours a day. Given that welfare reformers want to make getting a job of any kind a requirement to stay on welfare for anything more than a few months, even that lobby could jump in. There could also be movements to allow temp visas for immigrant workers to come for a few months to also work (especially before big launches) etc.

China simply can't risk that. They need these jobs for their people too much

We need the jobs more and these jobs don't belong to china, the king of stealing.

 

[Adidas Addict]

 

[iSee]

$38 million?

That's like 38 cents to me.

 

[Bubba Satori]

And when the country makes it difficult for Apple to produce iPads, iPods, iPhones, MacBook Airs, MacBook Pros, Apple TVs, etc., etc. in its factories... then what?

You realize the short-sightedness of short term galactic size profits
produced by selling your soul to an evil empire of slave workers. Magic.

 

[samcraig]

So 'ProView', the maker of cheap-ass monitors (from my experience with them) wants to wag Apple?

Wouldn't it be cheaper in the end if Apple bought ProView and liquidated their assets?

It doesn't matter what they make. They have the name.

And who says they want to sell? Not every company is for sale. This "fall back" response every time Apple encounters a company they have to wrestle with is tiresome. It's also not practical. I'm glad you (and others who think like you) aren't on the board.

 

[Rampant.A.I.]

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wait, china actually has laws?

Lol, china suing American companies over patent infringement... Will wonders never cease!