iPad Issues in China: Amazon Not an Authorized Retailer, Apple's Victory in Hong Kong Trademark Case

[mijail]

Depends on the type of business. If I went to pro view to buy iPad name they would look at my business and determin it's value.

If apple went to buy iPad name the same would happen.

Now if apple sent me to buy the iPad name and the business looked at me instead of apple how would you feel if you were that business?

I'd feel robbed and cheated. How can you feel any other way?

To me, it sounds like you are defending the likes of domain squatters. You know, the people who buy, say, the domain "xyzzy.org" because they hope the company Xyzzy will want to buy that domain, and will pay handsomely for it so you stop publishing whatever there.

If you have something to sell, you should (in my unreal and idealistic world) sell it for a fair price to you. Anything else is trying to make a quick buck, or creating a bubble. And we already have a lot of those, haven't we?

(Of course, "fair" has some considerations, like being informed of what you are selling exactly...)

 

[aristokrat]

To view Apple as swindling this guy/company is asinine. There is no such thing as absolute inherent value. If you agree to sell something, that's how much it was worth to you. The act of agreeing on a price automatically sets the value, so to cry about it afterwards is revisionist and cowardly.

 

[AlPlPlLE]

There were 45 iPads confiscated. Most likely by cops who saw an opportunity to get an iPad without paying. I would bet two cents that these iPads have been sold since, within China.

OR...

0.126030298 Chinese yuan

 

[gmanrique]

What are you talking about?

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)



Depends on the type of business. If I went to pro view to buy iPad name they would look at my business and determin it's value.

If apple went to buy iPad name the same would happen.

Now if apple sent me to buy the iPad name and the business looked at me instead of apple how would you feel if you were that business?

I'd feel robbed and cheated. How can you feel any other way?

Now if you were apple you'd feel happy. If that's how you like doing business.

Make sense?

So, to you it makes sense that if you hire an accountant to do your taxes, say from one single input source, he will charge you $1 if you made $100, or $2 if you made $150, even though it is the same ammount of work from said accountant? If you made more money than me, should you pay more for groceries than I do? Really?

 

[JGowan]

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So apple cheated this guy by sending in a smaller company to buy the iPad name. If apple had gone in themselves to buy it the guy would have asked for more money.

Sounds like the guy should have checked further.

Also sounds like apple cheated the guy.

I don't agree at all. Apple knows that everyone knows they have more money than Midas and will TAKE ADVANTAGE of that fact. Should Apple have paid more than £35,000? In my mind, it is a brand that instantly became worth a billion easy, simply because of the product it represents. Was Apple shrewd to have a third party buy the name? Absolutely. Purely business.

At the time, the seller thought £35K was a good deal. It happened to me once with a box of comics and some baseball cards I lost because of poor deal. I've since learned to consider things a little more carefully.

Simple business. Apple cheated no one.

 

[coolspot18]

What, What? An American company selling unauthorized products? Blasphemy!


Costco Canada is another unauthorized seller too; they carry Macbook Pros with Costco Warranty vs. Apple Warranty.

 

[Rocketman]

I don't know about those countries, but that ruling here would result in a criminal complaint being filed.

Rocketman

 

[Matt-M]

"It is well within the legitimate rights of the creditors (aka Proview Shenzhen) to refuse to transfer the trademark, since the parerent company lost is legal power to tell Proview Shenzhen what to do. The HK court's ruling is absolutely correct. But it is a useless ruling because whatever the HK court require the parent company to do, the parent company had already lost its power and legal capacity to do so."

That's not necessarily true.

It depends on when the purchase of the trademark took place in relation to the so-called creditors who assumed control of Proview Shenzhen. A sale agreement has validity even across borders. We simply don't have enough details to say. If the HK court thinks there's a conspiracy to cheat Apple, at least it comes from someone who has access to the details of the case.

Timeline according to the Hong Kong court documents, and other sources:

23 Dec 09 Agreement to sell iPad name executed by Proview Electronics
27 Jan 10 Apple announces iPad
24 Mar 10 Proview Shenzhen refuses Apple's demand to transfer name
7 May 10 Yang files to transfer the name to Yoke Technologies
12 May 10 Trading in Proview shares halted by HK exchange
24 May 10 Apple files suit to obtain name from Proview Shenzhen
28 May 10 iPad goes on sale internationally
2 Aug 10 Proview bankrupcy ruling

 

[nickgri]

name

Apple is SO stuck on names sometimes-just call the new one something else and be done with all these lawyers and their expensive crap. Get over yourselves and bring production back to the USA-so what it's a little more expensive-they have many billions and putting Americans to work is in Apples' best interest. We can all afford more of the products then. And probably make them better-have no huge shipping costs and they can make Apple products there for the Asian markets.

 

[HiRez]

I guess my question is, why did Apple not notice until now that the trademarks hadn't been transferred, if that was supposed to be done in 2009? It's obviously important to have secured trademarks for your products, shouldn't someone have been checking on that? Or if they did complain about it, why did the courts or authorities let it sit for so long unresolved?

 

[blouis79]

The Hong Kong ruling can be read here:
http://www.hklii.hk/cgi-bin/sinodisp/eng/hk/cases/hkcfi/2011/1375.html

The HK Court decision quoted appears to be an interim restraining order preventing Proview from selling the iPad China trademark, pending further legal action.

All of the Proview entities were under the control of the same, now bankrupt, person, Yang Long San, Rowell (“Yang”) when the agreement was signed to transfer all rights to the iPad trademark in China.

Proview/Yang accidentally or on purpose made a mistake in transferring those rights to Apple's proxy and have been playing games of commercial extortion ever since.

9. It is Apple and IP Application’s case that in the process of drawing up the formal written agreement (“the Written Agreement”) and the assignments (“the Country Assignments”) to give effect to the Agreement, the representatives of the Contracting Defendants represented and led IP Application to believe that all the Subject Trademarks, including in particular the China Trademarks, were owned by and registered in the name of Proview Electronics. Accordingly, the Written Agreement and the Country Assignments executed on 23 December 2009 expressly stated that Proview Electronics was the proprietor of the Subject Trademarks including the China Trademarks and that Proview Electronics warranted that it was the unencumbered sole owner of the Subject Trademarks including the China Trademarks. The Country Assignment pertaining to the China Trademarks (“the China Country Assignment”) also recited that Proview Electronics was the proprietor of the China Trademarks. However, after Apple had announced the launch of iPads in January 2010, it was discovered that the China Trademarks were in fact registered in the name of Proview Shenzhen. The China Country Assignment was accordingly ineffective in assigning the China Trademarks to IP Application.

10. Apple and IP Application further complained that while acknowledging that a mistake had been made in the China Country Assignment, the Contracting Defendants refused to rectify the mistake and suggested that Apple should pay US$10 million to purchase the China Trademarks.

11. On 24 March 2010, Apple and IP Application, through B&M, issued a letter to the Contracting Defendants demanding them to transfer the China Trademarks to them. The Contracting Defendants refused to do so.

In that action, Yang did represented himself and did not attend.

23. Yang purported to file an affirmation for and on behalf of himself and Proview Holdings on 30 July 2010. That affirmation was affirmed outside Hong Kong before a solicitor of Hong Kong. It is clearly inadmissible : see Top Flying Investment Ltd v Open Mission Assets Ltd [2006] 4 HKLRD 83, per Recorder McCoy, SC at paragraphs 30–32. B&M pointed out the deficiency to Yang’s solicitors but no attempt had been made to rectify the defect. Effectively, neither Proview Holdings nor Yang has placed any evidence before me.

24. As noted, Yang was adjudicated bankrupt on 2 August 2010. Apple and IP Application had obtained leave to proceed against him on 10 November 2010.

25. By letter dated 20 June 2011, Proview Holdings, through its solicitors, indicated that it would not object to the orders sought against it insofar as they relate to it.

26. What remains for my determination is the outstanding application against Yang. He is now acting in person. He did not appear at the hearing.