By Chris Chang, posted Feb 1, 2012 at 3:52 AM, 949 views,

Apple Fights Back On iPad Trademark Rejection in China

Good news for Chinese Apple fanboys. As expected, Apple has decided to file an appeal with the courts in China in an attempt to get hold of the iPad trademark in the country, after the company lost a court case to Proview, the Chinese display monitor company that claims control over the iPad trademark in China back in December last year. Apple filed the appeal on 5th January with the Higher People’s Court of Guangdong Province and asking for a compensation of 4 million yuan (abt US$634,400) in legal fees …

Here’s what happened previously. Apple had originally filed a lawsuit against Proview to assert its control of the iPad trademark. But Shenzhen Municipal Intermediate People’s Court announced it had rejected Apple’s claim. In its lawsuit, Apple claimed that a Proview subsidiary in Taiwan had sold the iPad trademark rights to a U.K.-based company, the trademark rights were then sold to Apple in 2010. The Shenzhen court, however, ruled that the transfer of trademark rights were only made through Proview’s Taiwan subsidiary. Proview’s Shenzhen-based company did not attend the trademark negotiations, and did not formally transfer any trademark rights.

Apple’s appeal claims that Proview’s Taiwan subsidiary was acting as a representative for Proview’s Shenzhen-based company. But Proview maintains it had no such relationship with the Taiwan subsidiary, and was not in any talks about the transferring of iPad trademarks. Apple is making the appeal as Proview has already filed two lawsuits in Chinese courts, demanding that Apple and local electronic vendor to stop selling tablets using the iPad name. The cases are still pending.

Meanwhile, some local lawyer told the Chinese press that Apple’s appeal has difficulty to make a ‘turn back’ on the lawsuits, and the chances to win back the iPad trademark is not high. In the end, Apple might need to change its tablet device’s name and they have to re-marketing the whole tablet business in China. But Apple seem to be more concern on the compensation in legal fees …

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Source: Sina Tech via Computerworld