Chinese Authorities and Retailers Removing iPads from Sale Over Trademark Issues?

[DESNOS]

The balancing act between world powers hinges upon humility and when the US took control of the Industrial Revolution and IT Revolution it's quite clear that 2012 is going to turn into a second term for President Obama and that won't bode well for China as corporations take advantage of incentives to come back home.

Feel free to vote me down, but if that man gets a second term, our country will be gone as we know it. Maybe you'll start to care then.

EDIT: Keep in mind that there's what he says, and what he actually does. They don't tend to match up.

 

[entropys]

Maybe Apple could put a removable sticker over the "iPad" label on the back case. Something along the lines of "iSosume".

 

[haravikk]

Since when did China care about trademarks? There are a ton of iPad clones over there, and blatant rip offs of Apple stores selling them.

 

[Lesser Evets]

So Apple has to rebrand and repackage over there... just change if from iPad to ChiPad.

DONE.

 

[Shuntros]

Was in Shanghai yesterday and no signs of any such problems at either of the big Apple stores or a couple of auth resellers I walked past.

 

[Dr McKay]

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 key difference here is, Those Chinese rip-offs are stealing the look of BMW and Mercedes, not the name. Whereas this Taiwanese company actually owns the name "iPad" in China.

 

[ChristianVirtual]

Apple might would need also to change the documentation and references inside the firmware/software... Could be quite some work.

 

[SteveSparks]

Why send any money abroad?

Don't take this wrong, I'm not totally anti-union but USA Labor unions are the reason Apple will never build products in the USA. If Apple opened a factory and employed 100,000 people like they do in China it would be ok for a few years and then after everyone was in a Union the costs (wages) etc would make it hard to due business (keep their high margins). Look at Walmart for a study on having a low paid work force and the complex nature of that business. Walmat can exist better however because the workforce is de-central where in an Apple Manufacturing working force would be in one place and easier to control.

 

[Stella]

Just change the name - no big deal.

Isn't that was a certain dead person said once?!

 

[wikus]

This couldn't happen to a more deserving company.

Intellectual property sucks.. Right Apple???

 

[mccldwll]

This couldn't happen to a more deserving company.

Intellectual property sucks.. Right Apple???

And why are you here???!

 

[ouimetnick]

I'm guessing the picture is showing the examine the capacity... 64GB.. Just what we need.

They don't have issues with all the knockoff iPads, iPhones, iPods, and other things. I must say they are hypocritical, and thieves.

Oh China

 

[wikus]

And why are you here???!

Because my computer is a Mac. Why?

 

[xlii]

Don't take this wrong, I'm not totally anti-union but USA Labor unions are the reason Apple will never build products in the USA. If Apple opened a factory and employed 100,000 people like they do in China it would be ok for a few years and then after everyone was in a Union the costs (wages) etc would make it hard to due business (keep their high margins). Look at Walmart for a study on having a low paid work force and the complex nature of that business. Walmat can exist better however because the workforce is de-central where in an Apple Manufacturing working force would be in one place and easier to control.

The reason isn't Apple's fear of unions. In China the workforce that manufactures Apple's products work 12 hour shifts, six days a week and live in barracks (dormitories) right next to the factories. They are paid much less than the minimum wage here in the US. No pollution laws, no osha. If you get injured on the job too bad for you. Basically if you could go back in time to 1905 here in the US you'd find working conditions similar to what China has today.

 

[Spectrum Abuser]

Apple!! How do ya like those Apples! Seems that China wont be bullied by Apple! Hoorah for the little guy!

#Obvious troll is obvious.

 

[tbrinkma]

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?

Since the Ford and Mercedes articles you linked don't have pictures of both vehicles, I can't comment in those cases, but looking at the BMW article, the two vehicles pictured, while similar, are indeed visually distinct from one another. The Chinese vehicle is no more a 'blatant copy' of the BMW model than any other brand of 'crossover' SUV, so it's no wonder the Chinese courts ruled as they did.

The distinguishing characteristic between that case and the Apple vs. Proview China situation is that Apple appears to have done it's due diligence, and believed it had acquired the trademark *prior* to introducing their product for sale in China. From the public information, it appears that the parent company misrepresented, or overstated the rights it was able to sell. Either that or the Chinese subsidiary is playing fast and loose with something.

What I expect to see happen is this: Apple uses a different name in China, and sues the parent company to recover it's costs from the Chinese case.

 

[E.Lizardo]

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.

Guess what? That gravy train is running down.

China cannot afford to drop it's GDP growth or it will collapse into a deep recession and you know what happens then?

Those US Companies and European Companies will move to South America and other fertile grounds.

The balancing act between world powers hinges upon humility and when the US took control of the Industrial Revolution and IT Revolution it's quite clear that 2012 is going to turn into a second term for President Obama and that won't bode well for China as corporations take advantage of incentives to come back home.

Apple is either the first or second largest valued corporation in the Globe, irrespective of which country it leverages for manufacturing and if you think the newly authorized production capacities in Brazil won't allow Apple to relocate most, if not all of it's Manufacturing capacity to South America then you really underestimate the nations of Central and South America, never mind the US whose fabs coming on line will make a big splash by 2014.

LOL
While anything is possible,it is in no way clear at this point.Santorum is beating him in the polls right now for God's sake,even Ron Paul is shockingly close.He has lost huge amounts of support in every demographic he carried last time.It will be a huge challenge for him to win.

 

[Singin Hobo]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A406 Safari/7534.48.3)

I love that picture. "hmmmmmm... It really DOES say 'iPad'. Somebody call our spelling specialists and put on a pot of coffee... we're going to be here for awhile."

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Hey, if any country is expert about IP theft it's China, so maybe its on to something here. <sarc>

Seriously, this is a shakedown by a totalitarian country. It's what they do.

 

[brdeveloper]

The reason isn't Apple's fear of unions. In China the workforce that manufactures Apple's products work 12 hour shifts, six days a week and live in barracks (dormitories) right next to the factories. They are paid much less than the minimum wage here in the US. No pollution laws, no osha. If you get injured on the job too bad for you. Basically if you could go back in time to 1905 here in the US you'd find working conditions similar to what China has today.

This reminds me pictures of Dorothea Lange taken at the Great Depression. If all those fanboys are really concerned about Apple earnings, they should stop buying Apple products until they move their factories back to USA.

Then they would buy an unlocked iPhone for just $1399,00. Not too bad since this is the price we pay for a chinese iPhone in Brazil. And despite the big price for the american standards, it sells well here.

 

[SeniorGato1]

Apple's bullying everyone else. Time for some of their own medicine!

 

[dynamojoe]

I'm not so concerned over whether Apple infringed on the trademark (the Chinese/Taiwanese company may have a case) but 1.6 billion? That's kind of high, no?

 

[brdeveloper]

I'm not so concerned over whether Apple infringed on the trademark (the Chinese/Taiwanese company may have a case) but 1.6 billion? That's kind of high, no?

Maybe that's what the iPad trademark is worth after Apple popularized it in China and not what Proview could make by itself using the trademark prior Apple's iPad has been launched.

 

[Bubba Satori]

When you lie down with dogs...

 

[alent1234]

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?

just like the US where the third tier automakers like mazda, kia and hyuandai copy honda and toyota. usually they are 2-3 years behind in copying the designs