Like many U.S. based companies have faced troubles in the Chinese territory, and Apple is no exception to the case. Last year, Apple, then under the leadership of late Steve Jobs, had acquired the trademark to use a Chinese based trademark for the name ‘iPad’. The company might have thought that its problems on that note wouldn’t arise ever again. But the calculations seem to have gone terribly wrong.
Recently, a Chinese court ruled a decision against Apple, which related to the ongoing legal battle over the ‘iPad’ trademark. The decision might seem harsh, as it could lead to Apple marketing the highly coveted product under a new name.
The brand value for Apple is of utmost importance. But the decision ruled out by the Chinese court might see the tech giant, handicapped as it may have to sell their iPad tablets under a new moniker.
Apple lost the battle against Proview Technology, a Chinese company. Apple claimed that the company was infringing on the name with their own product. Strangely, the same company had previously trademarked the name ‘iPad’ in 2000.
the decision was ruled in the favor of Proview Technology, as according to the patent court in Shenzen, China, the company was right in surviving the claim. The case had a u-turn and in fact Apple was the one to suffer yet again.
Last year, in October, Proview had sued Apple for 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) for copyright infringement; likely spurred by its 400 million yuan ($64 million) debt. Apple had to hand down the claim and had even purchased rights to the trademark from Proview’s global parent company.
The Chinese judiciary clearly did not share the same sentiments, as it was noted that the patent was bought by Apple to market and use the name globally, but not in China.
It seems like the Chinese patent law is deliberately designed to favor Chinese based companies, in efforts to protect Chinese intellectual property. However, it might have missed out of their notice that the over-protection of Chinese intellectual property have resulted in the Chinese versions of Western brands being protected by patent law, such as Weibo in place of Twitter, and Baidu in place of Google.
One might be forced to think that China, which in the tech world is the world’s largest smartphone market, after overtaking the U.S. earlier this year, has the potential to demand and make its one rules to play the game. It is affecting the tech biggies, who have shown interest in working in the difficult situations in China.
Google had faced terrible times too in China and it seems there is not much these tech biggies can really do about it.
However, in an unrelated development, Flipboad has announced that it is rolling out the feature for iPad in China.