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In October Taiwan-based company Proview Electronics charged Apple with trademark infringement related to the “iPad” name and the chairman promised to bring a legal action against Apple for damages in both China and US. Apple quietly acquired the global rights to the iPad trademark and also filed a suit to obtain the rights in China that apparently were not covered by the agreement. According to Reuter’s report ^[2], today Intermediate People’s Court in Shenzhen rejected Apple’s suit to acquire ownership over the trademark in China. As Financial Times reports ^[3], Proview have registered the iPad trademark in several regions including South Korea, EU, China, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. The report notes that Proview unsuccessfully marketed a tablet computer called I-PAD about ten years ago. Reportedly, courts have not yet made a final judgment on ownership, but Apple is said to have already won a preliminary injunctions for iPad trademark in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. In 2006 Proview sold the global trademark for “iPad” name to US company IP Application Development (IPAD) for $55.000. It appears that the Chinese trademarks were not covered by this agreement, which lead IP Application Development and Apple to sue Proview. In October, chairman of Proview Yang Rongshan said:

“It is arrogant of Apple to just ignore our rights and go ahead selling the iPad in this market, and we will oppose that”.

As of October, Proview was reportedly seeking about $ 1.5 billion in damages from Apple.