We had also reported that Apple could be fined 240 million yuan ($38 million) by government authorities over alleged trademark infringement involving the "iPad" name.
While Apple has appealed against the ruling favoring Proview, The Next Web now reports that authorities have started confiscating iPads discovered in retail stores in response to the ruling, while other retailers are proactively removing them to prevent them from being confiscated.
As of now the iPads have been confiscated only in the city of Shijiazhuang:
A report from iFeng [Chinese], translated by Penn Olson, clarifies that the iPad seizures are taking place in the city of Shijiazhuang only, in what appears to be a one off measure. It will be interesting to watch how this develops, as Chinese authorities have the eyes of the world on them.
Proview Technology had first filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Apple in 2010, claiming it owned the "iPad" trademark in China since 2000. At that time it was demanding $800 million from Apple. Apple had countersued Proview claiming that they owned the "iPad" trademark as they had bought European rights to the "iPad" trademark from Proview's parent company for $55,000, which also included China.
But back in December, Apple lost the lawsuit as the court ruled that Proview's parent company did not have the authority to sell them. Apple had appealed the December ruling that favored Proview. So this news comes as a surprise as you would ideally expect authorities to wait for the outcome of that appeal.
Apple's CEO Tim Cook has said that China is one of it's key markets and reiterated during the earning call last month that China remained the company’s big bet with regards to emerging markets.
It remains to be seen if this action by authorities in China will be a one-off action or if it will spread to other cities.
[DigiCha via The Next Web]
Nice!
Doom for Apple!!
F U China! All you do is copy and paste.
iSwear iAm going to make an iWebsite with every iPossible iName out there. iTrademark the whole iThing and then iSue iApple if they iTry to iUse any of iThem.
(Trademarked)
Exactly what iwas going to do… so you better get ready for my lawsuits
So chinese govt end up hurting their own manufacturing industry in their cowboyish attempt to secure a headline or two.
Think who will get hurt more if they ban apple eventually ? And they can do that in a snap of a fingers…
U should see the cars sold in China, all are copies.
Exactly the Chinese have a cheek they made an almost identical copy of the BMW X5 put a Chinese name on it BMW sued and a Chinese court through it out saying the doppleganger looked nothing like the X5.
Think the Chinese govt will try to sell the confiscated iPads?
china… low quality
IP infringement in China .. Comedy pf errors
This is what happens when big business tries to make deals with a communist country. Did you really think this was gonna last long. China thought of everything first. They’ll sue the U.S. next for allowing Walmart to sell their sh@t at ” everyday low prices”. Not to mention, big business gave them product designs to mass produce so now China owns the rights to those products. Yep even iPhone. Smart. Good job big business. You really socked it to us Americans. You got and will get what is coming to you.
China should trade mark iSuck. They just want free iPads, like the rest of us. China? All you had to do was ask.
Hahahaha. China will F$&k American businesses and then we are in trouble pretty soon won’t be able to get jobs at Walmart then we will only have jobs at McDonalds