Apple pays $60 million for ‘iPad’ name in China
In a dispute highlighting the possible pitfalls for brands in China’s young trademark system, Apple was forced to pay a company $60 million for the ‘iPad’ name.
Apple said it had bought rights to the name in several countries when it paid an affiliate of Shenzhen Proview Technology $35,000 in 2009. But in December 2011, a Chinese court ruled that the rights in China had not been transferred. Proview asked Chinese authorities to seize iPads in an apparent effort to make Apple settle.
In July 2012, the Guangdong High People’s Court confirmed that the case with Proview, which is struggling financially, had ended. According to one of Proview’s lawyers, the company had hoped for at least $400 million but settled for $60 million because it is desperate to pay other debts.
The case reemphasises how quickly trademark registration moves in China, where trademark squatters and speculative filers try hard to mimic famous brands, forcing them to pay large sums for their marks.
“Sometimes you will either have to pay up or shut up,” said Dr. Thomas Pattloch, partner at Taylor Wessing LLP in Germany. He said not everything can be claimed back through the legal system, under which there is “quite a restrictive interpretation of bad faith filing by the courts and authorities”.
Pattloch said the main lesson to learn for brands is that they must decide early “which trademarks they need today and tomorrow in China—and file more broadly than they would in Western jurisdictions”.
“Treat trademark squatting seriously and do not underestimate trademark pirates who often do their homework very well,” he said.
Only days later, Apple was hit by two more complaints. A chemical company, Jiangsu Xuebao, said it first registered the Chinese language translation of ‘Snow Leopard’ (Xuebao), an operating system Apple uses on its Mac computers. The company is apparently seeking $80,645 and an apology.
In the second case, a company called Zhi Zhen Network Technology, based in Shanghai, has filed a patent infringement claim against the iPhone maker. The complaint covers Apple’s software: ‘Siri’, which allegedly infringes the company’s own voice command technology: ‘Xiao i Robot’.
