This pathetic little company wants over a billion dollars from Apple? I hihgly doubt they're worth anything remotely close to that. I'd absolutely love to see Apple buy them, fire every person who had anything to do with bringing on the lawsuit, make sure they're lucky to get a job flipping burgers for the rest of their lives, then burn the building down and use the ashes to stuff their chairs.
Set a precedent like that, and the chances anyone else tries the same crap would be pretty slim.
I love reading about people describing China as huge and inferring the US is small.
The US GDP belies your claims of China being so big.
More to the point, the only reason China isn't a 2nd world dumping ground is due to the exploitation of cheap labor by those tiny US Corporations.
It's amazing that China has the gall to pull this kind of crap on Apple when native Chinese companies are doing this on a regular basis:
Chinese carmaker blatantly copies Ford F-150
Brillance's Blatant BMW Copy
Chinese Copy BMW and Mercedes
Don't see Chinese authorities cracking down on any of this stuff. At least Apple had the decency to buy the rights to the iPad name from the parent company. Who would've thought a parent company wouldn't have the right to license the trademark or name owned by one of their subsidiaries?
Apple!! How do ya like those Apples! Seems that China wont be bullied by Apple! Hoorah for the little guy!![]()
Yeah, it's the entire Chinese state apparatus that's the little guy, not Apple.
That's the thing about the Chinese - they refuse to enforce anybody's rights but their own perceived rights. It doesn't matter how big a customer Apple is: they're the biggest electronics company on the planet. If they were forced to leave (or more likely withdraw the iPad from sale, or sell it under a different name), it would do a lot of damage to China's credibility.
China needs its credibility. It's not the only country with a demographic boom and massive cheap labour force. India beckons.
This is just a ridiculous statement. I'm American, so I'm not trying to defend the Chinese, but I find the level of anti-Chinese sentiment in the US increasingly intolerable.
What's at issue is a trademark right under CHINESE LAW. Apple's lawyers f*cked up and didn't realize that they weren't assigned rights to the iPad trademark in China. This is not about the Chinese enforcing their rights (whatever that means). It's about a Chinese court enforcing simple trademark law in China. Just so happens that this case involves a well-known American company, but frankly this ordeal is all Apple's own fault and not a political matter. Now the ultimate resolution may be a political matter, but that remains to be seen.
This pathetic little company wants over a billion dollars from Apple? I hihgly doubt they're worth anything remotely close to that. I'd absolutely love to see Apple buy them, fire every person who had anything to do with bringing on the lawsuit, make sure they're lucky to get a job flipping burgers for the rest of their lives, then burn the building down and use the ashes to stuff their chairs.
Set a precedent like that, and the chances anyone else tries the same crap would be pretty slim.
And the hypocrisy of Apple getting in trouble by Chinese authorities for copyright infringement is so thick, you can cut it with a knife. Too bad the Chinese market is a HUGE opportunity for Apple. I remember reading a post on some Mac blog after Apple just released their 4th quarter earnings that said Apple is expected to sell 40 million iPhones in China the first quarter after it's opened up to the other big mobile carrier there. That's 3 million more than they sold worldwide last quarter. China alone could easily double Apple's overall sales in the next year, so Apple needs China pretty badly. I just hope the future isn't ridden with bullcrap like this.
Apple should respond by threatening to transition manufacturing of Apple products out of Foxconn's China plant and into Foxconn's Brazil plant as they develop other manufacturing sites outside China as well.
Yes, it is. It's a Chinese company that supposedly owns these rights and is seeking billions of dollars in damages. Suddenly China's authorities are active in clamping down on infringement and making scary noises.
As soon as it's a foreign company (oh, I don't know, Microsoft - suing for millions of pirate copies of Windows, for instance), the Chinese state quickly becomes silent.
Yes, Apple probably should have acquired those trademark rights (if they're even valid - the mark would potentially be liable for challenge by Apple since it itself is most strongly associated with iDevices). However, the enforcement procedures going on are totally hypocritical.
China is not a modern country like you seem to think it is. It's a lawless world in the spirit of Putin's Russia.
thelookingglass said:It's amazing that China has the gall to pull this kind of crap on Apple when native Chinese companies are doing this on a regular basis:
Chinese carmaker blatantly copies Ford F-150
Brillance's Blatant BMW Copy
Chinese Copy BMW and Mercedes
Don't see Chinese authorities cracking down on any of this stuff. At least Apple had the decency to buy the rights to the iPad name from the parent company. Who would've thought a parent company wouldn't have the right to license the trademark or name owned by one of their subsidiaries?
The difference is that "iPad" is a REGISTERED TRADEMARK in China. The examples you cited are designs and probably not protected by law. There's no legal basis to "crack down" on that and I haven't heard BMW or Ford complaining.
There's a huge difference between copyright infringement by private enterprises and government-endorsed infringement. Let's not confuse the two. Enforcement of copyright may be more lax than it is in the US, but it's not as if the government is encouraging private enterprises to illegally copy the products of foreign companies. "China" is not stealing protected intellectual property. Maybe certain companies in China are, but Chinese companies =\= China.
Chinese trade-mark is different - you are allowed *similar* products, but not exactly the same, and the first to registar gets the trademark. They don't give a **** about US trademark laws, but that's not their responsibility.It's amazing that China has the gall to pull this kind of crap on Apple when native Chinese companies are doing this on a regular basis:
Chinese carmaker blatantly copies Ford F-150
Brillance's Blatant BMW Copy
Chinese Copy BMW and Mercedes
Don't see Chinese authorities cracking down on any of this stuff. At least Apple had the decency to buy the rights to the iPad name from the parent company. Who would've thought a parent company wouldn't have the right to license the trademark or name owned by one of their subsidiaries?
China and his funny way of dealing with copyright.
Some examples:
http://gemssty.com/2006/10/29/top-10-copycat-cars/
http://www.bmwblog.com/2008/12/19/bmw-loses-court-battle-to-chinese-x5-clone
Had the government been indifferent and do nothing, or the court make a ruling in favor of Apple, you should add this to you fun listing showcasing disrespect of IP rights in China.
Fact is this time Chinese government is absolutely acting in line with legal norms and respecting IP.
Anyone with any basic sense of law would know it is Apple who f**cked up this whole thing and they are the only one to blaim. Proview Shenzhen and its creditors has evey reason to files claims against apple.
Proview is a HK listed public company with small shareholders possibly coming from the around the world (except China, cuz Chinese nations are barred from investing in HK stock markrt legally)
From legal perspective, Proview is as foregin as Apple and there is no incentive for the Chinese government to treat them differently. If you consider the larges sums of taxes paid by Apple and jobs created by Apple, Chinese government has no reason to treat a bankrupt company better than a major MNC and tax contributor.
those chinese hypocrites!