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Proview Sues Apple in U.S. Over Alleged Deception in iPad Trademark Purchase

SteveSparks said:
I believe it was $60 in additional labor costs, which I believe is highly unlikely since the academics who wrote the article had no knowledge of the manufacturing process. We just found out part of the process and number of steps to assemble and iPad, not all the steps to manufacture all the components.

The speculated cost of $60 more dollars in my opinion does not include the facility, and operational costs for a series of facilities.

As fas as supporting US jobs, you do support jobs at Apple, FedEx, UPS, and many others in the chain. The CPU I believe right now is made in Austin, Tx which has many US workers.
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The labour cost is not the biggest problem. Workers' rights are, as well as logistics. In China, you can have a 100,000 workers work for 2-3 months, then let all of them go in a day.
Also, the whole industry is down there. If you need new screws, you have them in a day. Imagine how long would you wait for them to ship from China to the US or Europe.
 
Apple has the right to do business to acquire trademarks via dummy corp names.

Why should Apple get completely robbed cause they are who they are?

The company selling the name/trademark should sell it as they seem to think it is worth at the time.

They made a deal and now are bitter due to it's success and want to see a way to make more money via a lawsuit in either hoping to win(doubtful) or settle out of court(obvious)

I hope this is thrown out quickly as a frivolous attempt of a law suit.

Allowing this case to further only invites other bitter companies to follow.
 
To me, Apple seem to play a dangerous game with product names and trademarks. Didn't they announce the iPhone prior to actually owning the name worldwide? Same with iOS? Seem to recall iTV appearing on some Apple documents as well at some point?

On the other hand if you want to call something that is totally unrelated to Apple and their products, their lawyers will be all over you in an instant.

Apple want it both ways and always in their favour, using their financial resources to fight legal battles a lot of smaller companies can't afford. Don't think it would be a bad thing for Apple to get knocked down a peg or two.

The one thing I don't understand with this though is that the papers suggest that Apple were to pay once the trademarks were reassigned to their shell company. Why did they pay if they weren't and why didn't they follow up on it at the time and prior to launching the iPad?
 
Joe The Dragon said:
well in the UK apple will have a hard time having a tv named itv
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Trademarks are built around eliminating "marketplace confusion" - since ITV in the UK is a broadcasting network, shouldn't be any problem with a physical product called iTV - if there ever were one made.

You could probably start making diapers called IPAD (incontinence pad) and there wouldn't be much legal problem with that from Apple - not that they'd like that activity.
 
krigsmakten said:
Trademarks are built around eliminating "marketplace confusion" - since ITV in the UK is a broadcasting network, shouldn't be any problem with a physical product called iTV - if there ever were one made.

You could probably start making diapers called IPAD (incontinence pad) and there wouldn't be much legal problem with that from Apple - not that they'd like that activity.
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Cotton Shopping bags vs Consumer electronics disagrees with you :

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2008/04/apple_vs_apple

Notice who is the aggressor in that one. So really, if a city can't have some cotton shopping bags because Apple sells consumer electronics, something much closer like a TV and streaming device vs a broadcasting channel (streaming, broadcast, gee what could the similarities be...) doesn't really stand a chance now does it. ;)

But I disgress. Apple can do whatever they want right ? 100 Billion $ and all ?

This site is so one sided sometimes...

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babyj said:
To me, Apple seem to play a dangerous game with product names and trademarks. Didn't they announce the iPhone prior to actually owning the name worldwide? Same with iOS?
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Nope, not the same with iOS. They learned from the whole iPhone debacle and actually went to Cisco prior to announcing the name change for iOS and got actual permission first.
 
Gamoe said:
Sneaky, sneaky Apple!!

Frankly, it was deceptive- Whether it was fair game or not, or more importantly in this case- legal or not- is another question entirely. But I would be upset if I thought I was dealing with a small company and it turned out to be a famous and huge international corporation, that's for sure.
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Uh - that's how the game is played, and it's up to the seller to do some due diligence prior to selling. You may not find out who's behind the shell, but you can figure out it is a shell and go from there. No company (or person, for that matter) is under any ethical requirement to lay out their plans beforehand.

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KnightWRX said:
Cotton Shopping bags vs Consumer electronics disagrees with you :

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2008/04/apple_vs_apple

Notice who is the aggressor in that one. So really, if a city can't have some cotton shopping bags because Apple sells consumer electronics, something much closer like a TV and streaming device vs a broadcasting channel (streaming, broadcast, gee what could the similarities be...) doesn't really stand a chance now does it. ;)

But I disgress. Apple can do whatever they want right ? 100 Billion $ and all ?

This site is so one sided sometimes...
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Actually, they’re protecting a logo, not a trademarked name. The difference is the logo represents the company and they want to avoid confusion or dilution of the logo. Someone could, for example, sell a Mustang printer but could not use the stylized Ford logo for say a donut shop. One represents a product in a specific niche, the other a company; which have different implications on what they mean when used.
 
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/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Everyone claiming it would just be $60 more to have the iPad made here...

Name me 1 part in the iPad manufactured in America.

Obviously, all the part companies are not moving here, so now they will be importing all of these parts, then assembling them here. And you think that will amount to $60 more and the same development time it takes now?
 
jlc1978 said:
Actually, they’re protecting a logo, not a trademarked name. The difference is the logo represents the company and they want to avoid confusion or dilution of the logo. Someone could, for example, sell a Mustang printer but could not use the stylized Ford logo for say a donut shop. One represents a product in a specific niche, the other a company; which have different implications on what they mean when used.
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It's an Apple. It doesn't even look the same. :rolleyes:

So the Big Apple can't use Apples in their logos because some electronic vendor uses them ? It's not like they directly copied the Apple logo here...
 
krigsmakten said:
Trademarks are built around eliminating "marketplace confusion" - since ITV in the UK is a broadcasting network, shouldn't be any problem with a physical product called iTV - if there ever were one made.
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I love how you've gone to the trouble of omitting the word television from both product descriptions.
 
Gamoe said:
Sneaky, sneaky Apple!!

Frankly, it was deceptive- Whether it was fair game or not, or more importantly in this case- legal or not- is another question entirely. But I would be upset if I thought I was dealing with a small company and it turned out to be a famous and huge international corporation, that's for sure.
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This is nothing.

Look at what Disney did back in the 60's to buy up all the land that it now owns in Central Florida. They had a multitude of dummy corporations, and the company lawyers even took very circuitous routes back to California to further hide their identity. Deceptive? Of course. Once it was discovered that Disney was the buyer, the outstanding parcels went up in price by orders of magnitude.
 
Peace said:
If Proview is bankrupt who is paying all these legal fees ?
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ever heard of ambulance chasers? Apparently there are 'corporate' versions of ambulance chasers, who only get paid if their client wins and/or settles.
 
iPadPublisher said:
Any idea where you read that? I've said quietly in my own circles that I'd be willing to pay more for American-made Apple products, but my only reservation was how much. I said that without any knowledge of how much that increase would really be though -- so I'd love to read that.

If it was $60 on the iPad -- I'd pay it. I know some people can't afford to, or simply wouldn't want to... but to support my country, and provide American jobs, I'd pay it.
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It has been estimated (by people who appear to know what they're talking about) that it would increase the assembly labor costs of the iPad by about $60 to do assembly in the US. But that estimate was *just* for labor and didn't take into account other costs which would be incurred in the process, such as those incurred by further separating parts of their supply chain, or building the necessary infrastructure to do be able to do this.

If you factor in building the factories necessary to do this, along with the specialized equipment needed, and dealing with the indirect costs involved in maintaining these facilities and their employees, you would expect to roughly quadruple that value.

It's certainly a nice *idea* to bring jobs back into the US, but it's a hard sell from a financial stand point to increase costs by $200+/unit in order to gain nothing.
 
tbrinkma said:
It has been estimated (by people who appear to know what they're talking about) that it would increase the assembly labor costs of the iPad by about $60 to do assembly in the US. But that estimate was *just* for labor and didn't take into account other costs which would be incurred in the process, such as those incurred by further separating parts of their supply chain, or building the necessary infrastructure to do be able to do this.

If you factor in building the factories necessary to do this, along with the specialized equipment needed, and dealing with the indirect costs involved in maintaining these facilities and their employees, you would expect to roughly quadruple that value.

It's certainly a nice *idea* to bring jobs back into the US, but it's a hard sell from a financial stand point to increase costs by $200+/unit in order to gain nothing.
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WHy can't people just get it through their heads that unskilled manufacturing labor is not coming back? Corporations are not going to sacrifice their bottom line and consumers are not going to pay more. We're a developed country - we invent and own the IP, other people make (or copy on occasion). I frankly am fine with this arrangement. Would you rather line up in droves to buy an iPhone or to apply for a job at Foxconn making iPhones?
 
Peace said:
If Proview is bankrupt who is paying all these legal fees ?
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Doesn't anyone here have any knowledge about finance and law? Just because an entity is in bankruptcy doesn't means that they have zero assets (cash) for expenditures. Bankruptcy means an individual, company or court mandate has declared that liabilities are greater than assets.

American Airlines, as an example (or Kodak, etc.) are in bankruptcy. Do you think that means that they aren't continuing to spend millions of dollars on employee payrolls, supplies, etc? Hardly.
 
trainwrecka said:
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/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Everyone claiming it would just be $60 more to have the iPad made here...

Name me 1 part in the iPad manufactured in America.

Obviously, all the part companies are not moving here, so now they will be importing all of these parts, then assembling them here. And you think that will amount to $60 more and the same development time it takes now?
Click to expand...

Frustrating that the same dumb people who do not think globally or do research keep mentioning Apple products should be "Made in USA".

Why is that even Apple's problem?

The workforce (as in humans) to do so is not available. Anybody watching the ABC visit at FOXConn and saw how much handwork is done should get it.

Robots would not create jobs and are not an option due to ever changing production lines.

This is a logistics issue and can't be done in the US. Legal restrictions, tax issues, business unfriendly practices by bankrupt states that try to reach into any pocket you have.

What and where are the incentives for anybody to do mass production in the US?
300,000 iphones a day in the US , good luck and many happy returns!
 
KnightWRX said:
Nope, not the same with iOS. They learned from the whole iPhone debacle and actually went to Cisco prior to announcing the name change for iOS and got actual permission first.
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Did they actually sign a deal with Cisco first? I can't remember the exact timings. But either way they haven't learnt any lessons, if they had they'd have avoided the iPhone issues after the years of legal disputes with Apple Corps.
 
Hey ProView, good luck with that lawsuit. In this country we prosecute you for extortion. You also have to be using a trademark in order to keep it in the USA. You haven’t produced an “iPAD” computer in years. Finally, your being upset that Apple bought the trademark through a shell company is your way of saying that Apple never gave you the chance to extort money out of them up front and now you are trying to do it after the fact by refusing to file paperwork to transfer the trademark and instead filing lawsuits. I hope every one of your board go to jail in China over this.
 
This is such a BS response. Their real argument isn't deception, it's "If we knew this was Apple we would have charged more". Seller's remorse :p sucks for them
 
This seems like a desparation move by Proview. There's a chance they won't get a favorable decision in the Chinese courts so they're improving their odds.

I wonder where the Chinese government is in all this (assuming the court will find as the Chinese government tells it to). Dare they alienate Apple, and other manufacturers, by finding for Proview? Other countries build electronics, too. Do they lose face by not siding with Proview against a deep-pocketed foreign company? High on the list of Beijing's fears is any form of civil dissent.

Beijing is hoping the settlement price comes down and Apple settles to make this all go away. They don't want to have to make this choice.
 
Kudos to Proview's lawyers (the real winners here) for convincing Proview to entertain the crazy idea of taking it to Apple on their home turf.

Bankrupt companies really should make wiser financial decisions...
 
pdjudd said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/9A405)



Luckily apple doesn't make a product called "iTV"
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No, but they have advertised it as the iTV on numerous occasions.
 
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