Apple are said to have lost a key court case in Shenzen (China), which could see them unable to use (or pay big money for) the rights to the name ‘iPad’ in the country, following an ongoing dispute with local company Proview Technology.

A decision made yesterday in the Municipal Intermediate People’s Court dismissed Apple’s plea (though the case was left open to appeal from Apple), seemingly declaring Proview (a subsidary of computer monitor and screen maker Proview International Holdings) with Chinese ownership of the trademark name of Apple’s portable content viewing and computer-based device.

In what was either a bizzare coincidence or an extraordinary prediction of the technological future, Proview made an (unsuccessful) attempt at creating a tablet computer in the year 2000, even more bizarrely registering their proposed device as ‘IPAD’, trademarking the name in (amongst other places) China, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Mexico, and the EU.

While pretty much all of these countries (and continents) currently sell the iPad without issue, Proview are of the belief that it is a breach of trademark at least in China, despite Apple’s defense of having brought the IPAD name from Proview’s Taiwanese affiliate (Proview Taipei), in 2006 for $60,000.

The court, however, stated that since Proview Taipei is only an affiliate to the main company Proview (who were not involved in the 2006 deal), the handover only applies to that branch of the company.

Proview’s lawyer Xiao Caiyuan said of the progress made in the case: “Apple is such a Goliath and has a good image, so people wouldn’t imagine that Apple could possibly infringe on our intellectual property rights. People always think it’s small companies infringing upon large companies’ intellectual property rights (IPR).”

It is thought that with a legal confirmation of the rights, Proview Technology, who are said to be dealing with financial issues at the moment, will make a move to sue the American technology giant for $1.6b over the fact that the iPad has been sold in China under an ‘illegal name’. Some local stores reselling the product in the cities of Shenzen and Huizhou have already been taken to court on the matter. Proview representative Li Su added: “We hope that this decision will make our negotiations with Apple a bit easier.”

An additional windfall for Proview, if they choose to take it, could be to sell the iPad name to Apple, and while no-one is doubting that they have the financial power to match any figure Proview can realistically throw at them, how long will the lucky Chinese company be able to take advantage of this situation?

In more positive news for Apple, their late co-founder Steve Jobs has been chosen to become the subject of a bronze statue in the city of Budapest (Hungary), under the commission of Hungarian software company Graphisoft SE, who were once helped by Jobs to create an architectural design programme (ArchiCAD).

Graphisoft representative Gabor Bojart said of the planned tribute: “Steve not only understood where the world was going, he shaped its future. He was a true leader whose greatest achievement lay not in what he created himself, but in what he was able to inspire his people to achieve. He found the best people and inspired them to do wonders.”

This entry was posted on Friday, December 9th, 2011 at 8:10 am and is filed under Internet TV news, iPad, Tablet PC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.