Apple faces iPad trademark battle with Chinese firm over the iPad Name

Proview, a Taiwanese-owned company which owns the trademark for “iPad” China says it will sue Apple for infringing on its ownership in that market, according a report in the Financial Times. Nearly a decade ago, Proview tried unsuccessfully to market a tablet computer it called “I-Pad.”
“We will sue them for damages in China and in the US,” Yang Rongshan, Proview’s chairman, told the Financial Times.
Although the product failed, the company trademarked the name “IPAD” in the E.U., China, Mexico, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam at different times between the years 2000 and 2004. FT notes that trademark databases validate Proview’s claim.
In 2006, Proview reportedly sold the global trademark (except, Proview said, in China) to a U.S. company named IP Application Development, for $55,100. It turns out, however, that IP Application Development was really Read more…









