Where's the evidence of corruption in. Honest courts. The Chinese authorities have proven to come down extremely hard on corruption in recent years. There are plenty of x governors to prove it.
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Apple Settles Chinese 'iPad' Trademark Dispute with Proview for $60 Million
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Where's the evidence of corruption in. Honest courts. The Chinese authorities have proven to come down extremely hard on corruption in recent years. There are plenty of x governors to prove it.
Standard business practice worldwide to avoid paying more than something is worth. Also, as you say, to prevent revealing the direction of new product development and give corporate spies less of a leg up.
Read the evidence presented in the Hong Kong case. Apple's representative (IPAD) approached executives of the mainland Chinese subsidiary, which was registered as the owners of the trademark. Said executives advised IPAD that rights had been transferred to the Taiwanese division, and requested that IPAD meet them in Taiwan to complete the transaction. Proview's Chinese officers, following the transfer of funds and signing of documents, subsequently revealed that Chinese naming rights were never transferred to their Taiwanese subsidiary, so could not have been sold by that subsidiary, for which, coincidentally, they were also officers. So after they stated in writing to IPAD that they had transferred the Chinese naming rights to their Taiwanese subsidiary, which they also managed, they claimed that they didn't know that they didn't transfer those rights from the one subsidiary that they managed to the other subsidiary that they also managed. Either they were clearly intending to mislead, or they were incredibly incompetent. This is why the Hong Kong court ruled that Apple had rightfully purchased all naming rights, and why the case filed in the U.S. was summarily dismissed. Proview's only hope of succeeding in this case was that the Chinese national bank, and by extension, the government of the PRC, was their largest creditor. So they were counting on the fact that the government of the PRC would pressure the court to rule would be in their favor, since it would also be in the government's favor.
I am concerned about the future ramifications of rewarding this kind of shady business practice by Proview in any way, even though the potential loss of sales in China, even during a court case, would far outweigh the amount that Proview was paid. I guess you could say it's part of the price of doing business with China.
I was at the Apple store in The Woodlands mall on Saturday and saw about 4-5 people request new Macs in under 5 minutes. If this is the trend at all of their stores, I'm not so sure it would even take them an hour lol
My house is worth £120k bricks, mortar and fixtures. The market value is £450k because that is what the market is willing to pay. That value is held up by the desire for people to own their house. The iPad name was worth more to apple than it initially paid and any seller that had the right and knew they were selling to Apple would have known that.
You point out their incompetence at transferring the rights and I think you are correct. However we have all benefited from a screw up at some point. In this case they had an opportunity to revisit the sale knowing the true identity of the buyer. The initial claim was too high, but I believe Apple has paid what the name was worth pre launch. It is a billion dollar trademark now.
Apple made the mistake of assuming it was working within the rules of a conventional legal framework. Once the dispute moved to China, all bets were off.
Their debtors will get $60 million. Proview is bankrupt.
Apple could have decided to call the iPad "iPod XL" in all the countries where they cannot get the iPad trademark, and the trademark would have been worth nothing.
The strongest Apple haters clearly won't! They have the chance of buying something called "iPad" without buying an Apple product, surely they will jump at the chance!
The one time in my life I had to talk to a lawyer, he told me "I've won cases where I was sure I should have lost, and I've lost cases where I was sure I should have won. Once you're in court, anything can happen".
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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.
Nice try . No need to downvote.
You do know that the iphone has a few more components than boards?
Would we then transport the US made boards to China, Brazil or where do they get assembled?
If you follow the logistics about producing millions of electronic devices in USA that have been discussed in many ways, you would know that there are not enough workers available in the US to do the type of production tech companies need. (Not just Apple).
There aren't enough engineers in the US (Hello, education, no child left behind)
There aren't enough people in one city/area in the US to do what Asia does.
(NY Times article and these guys are not Apple friendly)
There were TV reports about Apple factory productions where this was brought up.
This is not even about higher prices US production would cause (actually, not necessarily true)
Do yourself a favor and read up on this (Plenty of info available), instead of repeating uninformed patriotic statements.
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The story, like so many other legal stories, is sadand it has nothing to do with how much money Apple has. It's about companies (and sometimes individuals) profiteering from the legal system.
Some people just want a fair, just and reasonable outcome from the legal systemthat's what it's supposed to be there for. I know personally of people who bear serious and permanent injury due to government negligence, and friends whose whole livelihood has been ruined by one faulty product in their supply chainand these people are bled dry (emotionally and/or financially) as the legal cases wear on for years, and years (and the only real winners are the lawyers). Then you hear of a case like this where an opportunistic company walks away with an easy 60 million because they saw an opportunity to screw a bigger companynothing more. I don't find any of this amusing. It's just sad.
Both sides should have done their due diligence from the very beginning. It doesn't appear the settlement will save Proview nor will it bankrupt Apple.
No matter how much currency one has, I just can't find it in my heart to call $60,000,000 pocket change.
Shakespeare>1594>Henry VI (Part 2)>Act 4 Scene2>"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers".
No matter how much currency one has, I just can't find it in my heart to call $60,000,000 pocket change.
Shakespeare>1594>Henry VI (Part 2)>Act 4 Scene2>"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers".
There it is right there—an admission that the system is screwed from one who profits by it.
Right. 60 million is 60 million. You can do a lot of good and noble things with 60 million.
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Anyway, the good news from this outcome is that we can hope never again to see the Proview logo on the MacRumors homepage. Please??
They'd only have been a trademark troll if Apple wasn't so secretive and they beat them to the name after it was clear that Apple should own it.
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.
But thats pure fantasy. By the way, the amount you sue someone for isn't supposed to be a number you pull out of your ass, it needs to be justified.
Unless you owe somebody else more than 5x that amount. Then it is not your money to do good or noble things with.
They could have done, but given that Apple TV is almost certainly not iTV due to one trademark issue in one country, Apple have demonstrated that a global brand name is important to them. This happened pre sale a well.
My point is not that the trademark is worth $60m, simply the seller did not know the value of their item because the buyer hid from view and in so doing deceived the buyer (not necessarily with the intention to deceive so as to attain a lower price). To argue that deception is fair because it stops the buyer from overvaluing the product is a vacuous statement because the buyer will not purchase above its real value in these situations. The reality is that to withhold the info intentionally can only be done with the intend to suck in the seller. This happened here due to circumstance in my opinion. If it had been intentional then I would have to argue the case that it was extremely immoral.
Mercedes add a premium on a product because of an intangible value given to it by the perception of the buyer. We accept that and do not generally scorn it. This is my main point regarding its value.
If I own a Ming vase but do not know it and a buyer approaches me to say they want it, knowing what it is, but not sharing
that info, then they deceived me. There is no way to argue that they're actions are acceptable as morality has to be capability agnostic and therefore cannot blame the seller for not knowing or knowing that they should find out.
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The trademark had very little inherent value. That's demonstrated by the fact that Apple can by a simple decision change the value to zero. And what you don't seem to realise is that the first sale happened _before_ Apple released the iPad, so not only could Apple have picked a different name in China, but they could have picked a different name everywhere.
The Ming vase has an inherent value. The trademark has no inherent value; if Apple decided that they don't want the name, the value would be practically zero.
DO they even need to? Their profit margins on those things are way over 9000!!!!
If anything, they probably don't need to spend charges on freight exporting those stuff, so that's even more cost savings there.
Indeed. 60 million is 60 million. And a 400 million black hole is a 400 million black hole. The point is, 60 million isn't a trivial settlement.
Poetic justice for a company who has sued a German cafe, an Australian grocery store, and a Chinese food maker over logos that look nothing like the Apple logo.
TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lawyers are nasty, Apple(behind the scenes) is nasty, big business is nasty....
TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN LIKE HELL!!!!!!
Lawyers are nasty, Apple(behind the scenes) is nasty, big business is nasty....
TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN LIKE HELL!!!!!!
It is alot! But when you have the big red dragon backing you up, you can expect more than the "fair market value" for trademarks.
Apple don't manufacture anything in the US, durrrrr. They only assemble, and by assemble, it means putting it in a nice box, not anything technical.
The attitude you find so despicable is the exact same attitude Steve Jobs and everyone in the executive boardroom have. Not to mention 95% of the Fortune 500 companies, all manufacture abroad, durrrrr.