Judge Tosses Proview's U.S. Suit Against Apple over iPad Trademark

Among several lawsuits filed by Chinese company Proview alleging that it legally owns the "iPad" trademark in China despite a deal December 2009 between Proview's Taiwanese arm and a dummy corporation set up by Apple for the purposes of acquiring the trademark, one lawsuit has been filed in the United States. In that suit, filed in California in late February, Proview alleged that Apple had engaged in deception in its efforts to acquire the trademark.

The Wall Street Journal now reports that the judge handling the case has thrown it out of court, citing an apparent agreement between Apple and Proview to adjudicate their differences in Hong Kong courts, where Apple won a decision last year.

After Proview took its legal case to the U.S., Apple argued for the case to be dismissed on the grounds that the parties had agreed to settle any legal disagreements in Hong Kong.

Judge Pierce upheld that view, writing that Proview failed to provide evidence that the selection of Hong Kong was "unreasonable or unfair," according to a copy of the order.

In response to the decision throwing out the U.S. case, Proview's lawyers claimed that the decision was not based on the merits of the case and that the company will appeal the decision.

The U.S. developments come as Apple and Proview continue their litigation in China, where the two companies are engaging in court-suggested settlement talks that have reportedly seen Apple for the first time making a settlement offer. But the two parties apparently remain far apart in their expectations for a settlement, and it is unclear whether the talks will yield any agreement.

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Top Rated Comments

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Gubbz

90 months ago

I don't see the issue, ProView obviously sold the name for what they felt was a fair price, otherwise why did they sell it? Dummy company or not, they willingly sold it. The price shouldn't quadruple (and that is being extremely conservative lol), just because it's Apple... If you queue up and buy a burger, you expect to pay the same as the guy in front of you, you wouldn't expect to be asked to see a payslip so they could calculate out how much you have to pay... It just sounds like sour grapes, if they had known who it was, they'd have upped the price...

Rating: 10 Votes

komodrone

90 months ago

We all pay 99 cents for a double cheeseburger, whether you're a homeless guy or a billionaire.

Rating: 7 Votes

ingra888

90 months ago

China is china, more than half the stuff they produce are blatant copies with slight differences in words but you can see what they
replicated.
The government in china turns a. Blind eye to it.
But when the shoes on the wrong foot, they can't take no for an answer.
Problem with Chinese businesses is contracts and documents are not worth the paper they are written on.

Rating: 4 Votes

fabian9

90 months ago

That's exactly right! It's also not very difficult to work out who might have an interest in the name iPad, considering at the time there was an iMac, iPod, iPhone, etc. on the market!

Proview missed a trick here and they're trying to dig themselves out of a hole.

Rating: 3 Votes

bretm

90 months ago

We all pay 99 cents for a double cheeseburger, whether you're a homeless guy or a billionaire.

The McDouble only has one slice of cheese now. But yeah.

Rating: 2 Votes

gnasher729

90 months ago

From previous articles found on this site, they have mentioned that Taiwan didn't have the rights to sell the name (even though some corporate head office guys were involved).

If I bought a car and "gave" it to my daughter and then she decided to sell it without my signature/say so, then it wasn't a legit sale.

I don't know what is involved in selling rights to a name, but if the right people didn't sign the dotted line then they might have a case.

On the other hand, if I offered to buy your car, you said that it was your daughter's, and I handed the money to your daughter while you were watching, and then you called the police for car theft when I drove away, I don't think you would get away with it. And that is exactly what Proview is trying to do.

Rating: 2 Votes

kurosov

90 months ago

You have an interesting concept of "give". A transfer of ownership.

Now, if you bought a car for your daughter to USE then it's her car as much as say her bedroom. Your property you are free to take back.

Rating: 1 Votes

milani

90 months ago

Sounds about right.

Rating: 0 Votes

Rocketman

90 months ago

After Proview took its legal case to the U.S., Apple argued for the case to be dismissed on the grounds that the parties had agreed to settle any legal disagreements in Hong Kong.

Judge Pierce upheld that view, writing that Proview failed to provide evidence that the selection of Hong Kong was "unreasonable or unfair," according to a copy of the order.

In response to the decision throwing out the U.S. case, Proview's lawyers claimed that the decision was not based on the merits of the case and that the company will appeal the decision.

The court ruled on JURISDICTION first so it became MOOT to rule on the MERITS. Proviews comments are PR not LEGAL, which is indicitive of their strategy in this case. To attempt to try the case in public. Unfortunately for them there is no website called ProviewRumors.hk to be their fanboi and dissect every detail of the proceedings and bias it toward them. :) And thank goodness because the cacophony of criticism over the ruling of misrepresentation against them in HK would be, shall we say, just a bit embarrassing.

Rocketman

Rating: 0 Votes

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