Chinese Official Says Proview Owns iPad Trademark

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Posted April 24, 2012 at 2:34pm by iClarified

A senior official with the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) has said that Proview is the rightful owner of the iPad trademark, according to a Reuters report.

"According to the ... provisions of the China Trademark Law, currently Shenzhen Proview is the legal registrant of the iPad trademark," Fu Shuangjian, a deputy director of SAIC, was quoted as saying at a news conference in Beijing.

This is a very bad sign for Apple as it signals how the government might rule. Proview has accused Apple of fraud and unfair competition in how it purchased the trademark.

"This case has a huge impact and the final court ruling would directly influence who owns the iPad trademark. The commerce department will (take the matter) very seriously," said Fu, whose department governs market regulation and supervision.

Proview says its still negotiating with Apple but no settlement has been reached.

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Chinese Official Says Proview Owns iPad Trademark

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Bill Gates - April 26, 2012 at 1:10pm

It's not about cheap (slave) labour. Apple products use rare earth materials to manufacture. China controls 95% of these rare earth materials. So you can get cheap labour else where but you won't get the materials to build your device. China has export restrictions on these rare earth materials.

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samK - April 25, 2012 at 2:49am

chinese consumers are gonna rip proview apart if the ipad gets yanked from their market. more smuggling i guess.

NoGoodNick - April 24, 2012 at 8:05pm

That's the reason the iPad 3 was officially named "The New iPad" (on a temporary label on the box that can easily be yanked). I suspect Apple would be more likely to pull the iPad from the Chinese market than it would be to change the name of it's biggest seller across the rest of the world. The jobs will stay, but the product might not. It's unfortunate that Provue had previously claimed the name, but they really don't have much of a financial leg to stand on, and this battle over their name is their ownly hope to remaining financially solvent (they're hoping a huge settlement will allow them to revise their business).

Bill Gates - April 26, 2012 at 1:13pm

What would you do? Pull the product from sale because your upset you can't call it iPad. Or rename the product and still sell billions and make loads of money? No brainier really.

Vinny - April 24, 2012 at 4:35pm

They (Chinese officials) should give Apple the iPad name as a thank you for providing jobs to thousands upon thousands of migrant workers. Without Apple, these people would still be in the rural areas toiling away on marginal farmlands and earning little money

Lm - April 24, 2012 at 7:27pm

And apple without Chinese will probably not exist as the iphone would cost 10 times more.

Bill Gates - April 26, 2012 at 1:17pm

Thousands of workers is tiny in comparison to the total number of people in china!