Proview and Apple are at loggerheads in China over a trademark dispute between the two, where the latter actually sought the court of law in China to ban the export of Apple’s iPads from the country simply because they hold the trademark for “iPad” in that part of the world. Later, Proview did share that it would be extremely difficult for the export ban to go through considering how much revenue Apple brings into the country. Well, it seems that the tables have turned on Apple now, as Chinese authorities were reported to have seized iPads from retailers. We do now that iPads were seized in the central city of Zhengzhou and the eastern port of Qingdao, in addition to earlier seizures at two more cities, Shijiazhuang and Xuzhou.
The meat of the tiff is this – while Shenzhen Proview Technology registered the iPad trademark in China in 2001, Apple purchased the rights to the iPad name from a Taiwan company that is affiliated with Proview, although the mainland company claims that they still own the name in China itself. In fact, a Chinese court threw out Apple’s claim to the iPad name in China back in 2011. How do you think this will pan out, and will it affect the sales of the iPad 3 when it finally gets announced – most probably in the first week of March?