

Apple can't call an iPad an iPad in China, says court. - adhipg
http://www.ndtv.com/article/profit/apple-loses-lawsuit-has-to-pay-1-6bn-or-rename-ipad-in-china-293628

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shimon_e
Wow $1.6 billion. I remember a case in China few years ago when a peasant
found a 3cm bug in a bottle of Sprite. He sued Coca-Cola for 4 rmb ($0.64).
The court ruled in his favor but only awarded him 2.05 rmb.

I wonder if this is a change in heart in how much the Chinese courts will be
awarding in future cases.

~~~
PakG1
That's like comparing an ant and an elephant.... how does it even compare? One
is a bottle of Sprite, and not even a class action lawsuit, the other is a
trademark for selling rights in the entire country.

~~~
shimon_e
I was making a point that Chinese courts generally don't award large lawsuits.
The peasant sued for 4 rmb but the court felt that was too much. Here is the
news article if you are interested:
[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2010-02/04/content_942...](http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2010-02/04/content_9429513.htm)

Here is another case dealing with trademarks where the Chinese courts awarded
nickels on dimes.

<http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2006/01/11/afx2444090.html>

~~~
PakG1
OK, got it. But it would have been easier to accept your point from the
beginning if you'd have used the chocolate example in the first place. That's
a much better comparison.

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mikhailt
We don't really have the whole story here.

If you read the news story here from China:
[http://topics.scmp.com/news/china-business-
watch/article/App...](http://topics.scmp.com/news/china-business-
watch/article/Apple-faces-fight-or-big-payout)

> The Hong Kong court found that Apple and IP Application, while drawing up
> the agreement for that sale, discovered the two mainland iPad trademarks
> were not owned by Taipei-based Proview Electronics as they were led to
> believe, but by Proview Technology.

> Apple said the defendants, while acknowledging the mistake, refused to
> rectify the matter and asked Apple to pay US$10 million for the two
> trademarks. Apple and IP began their action against the Proview group on May
> 20 last year.

All of this points that Apple didn't exactly do this intentionally.

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pi18n
Although I don't know if it's fair to tar them all with the same brush, I find
it ironic that a Chinese company would cry foul on trademarks.

~~~
dasil003
It's just a desperate company approaching bankruptcy doing what they can to
stay alive.

~~~
valnour
They may be a desperate company approaching bankruptcy, but they did own the
trademark for the name long before Apple wanted to use it.

~~~
dasil003
What does it take to own a trademark in China? What is the actual value of
their trademark? Until I know that I'm more inclined to think they've won the
lottery than built any value on the name iPad.

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mrkmcknz
For some bizarre reason this made me smile.

~~~
zalew
I'd smile even more if the chinese company was a manufacturer of those cheap
knock-offs

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elithrar
I think it's extremely unlikely Apple would sell the iPad under any other
name. The 'brand' is too strong—and is probably worth $1.6b to them.

~~~
nodata
$1.6b in lost sales? Even if Apple call it something else, everyone will still
call it an iPad.

If I were Apple I'd come up with a name unique to the Chinese market.

~~~
martingordon
$1.6B is nothing to Apple. They had $80B in cash at the end of September and
could very well pass $100B after the holidays.

I don't think there's any way Apple will dilute the brand of one of their
flagship products in their hottest market. Plus, it works both ways: they
would have to find a trademark that works everywhere else so that competitors
don't snatch up the new trademark in other countries.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
Having the money and it being nothing are different.

If I need to I could come up with $10,000 for something. That doesn't mean
that it's not significant and it doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do
if I have an alternative.

~~~
martingordon
The cost of switching to a different name isn't $0, though. Both the cost and
added complexity is significant. Some considerations:

* Cost of finding and registering a different trademark that's available worldwide.

* Cost of developing new marketing materials.

* Cost of tweaking software to use new name.

* Cost of tweaking production lines to print new name on devices and packaging.

* Cost of lost sales due to customer confusion (Chinese traveling to America; Foreigners traveling to China).

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
I'm not saying that there are no costs, there clearly are, the most
significant of which is brand dilution.

What I'm saying is that $1.6bn is clearly not nothing, not to Apple, not to
anyone.

------
ugh
_“Their copyright infringement is very clear.”_

Wrong translation, wrong statement or different laws?

Other than that: Boring.

~~~
PakG1
When I read the article, it actually seems a bit complicated and not so cut
and dry.

If foreign companies want to enter China, they need to obey Chinese law,
especially when those laws aren't malicious, make sense, and are enforced
correctly, even if the result is ludicrous. Any country should expect the same
when a foreign company comes to compete within their shores. And in this
particular case, it doesn't seem ludicrous.

Here's a ludicrous example, a close cousin to domain name squatting:

[http://www.chinahearsay.com/coca-cola-plays-it-smart-in-
its-...](http://www.chinahearsay.com/coca-cola-plays-it-smart-in-its-ip-fight-
with-nongfu-spring/)

What Apple has going for it here is the fact that it has Foxconn as a key
manufacturing partner, which is a huge employer in China. That may give it
some political power. Who knows. In the end, $1.6b is chump change for Apple,
and it may be worth it for them to just settle.

~~~
pjin

      What Apple has going for it here is the fact that it has
      Foxconn as a key manufacturing partner, which is a huge
      employer in China. That may give it some political power.
    

Foxconn is a Taiwanese company. That doesn't count as "political power" in
China.

~~~
czhiddy
Foxconn employs over a million Chinese citizens. They undoubtably have
enormous amounts of guanxi (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi>) with all
levels of the government, from local to national.

~~~
pjin
I am familiar with how China operates. Being close with the govt/CCP in China
is standard practice.

So you must also be aware that Foxconn has come under very intense media
scrutiny in _China_ since a couple of years ago. Consider this sequence of
events:

[1] [http://news.softpedia.com/news/Foxconn-Sues-Two-
Journalists-...](http://news.softpedia.com/news/Foxconn-Sues-Two-Journalists-
for-Disclosing-the-Poor-Working-Conditions-34226.shtml)

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Chinese_labour_unrest>

[3]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/business/global/07foxconn....](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/business/global/07foxconn.html)

Of course this observation doesn't depend on Foxconn being Taiwanese. But the
two are not necessarily unrelated given the increasingly nationalist
trajectory of Chinese policy. And more in response to the nature of Foxconn's
guanxi with the govt, no amount of it can save Foxconn from uniform wage
increases or increasingly negative _Chinese_ media coverage.

------
PakG1
I used to own a Proview CRT monitor back in the day. My, my, how things have
changed.

------
mdonahoe
What does the word "iPad" look like in Chinese?

~~~
jcampbell1
Apple doesn't use Chinese characters in their Chinese branding, so it looks
like "iPad". Also chinese has adopted quite a bit of English these days, for
instance a music player is an MP3, and a portable video player like and iPod
touch is an MP4. The M and P are pronounced like English, and the number is
spoken in chinese. Interestingly, "Apple" is almost always written and spoken
in Chinese: 苹果 - ping guo - which has the same meaning as the English.

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xedarius
iPad is a strong brand, and I can't see Apple selling it as anything else.
However it is not worth $1.6b. If the company holding the copyright wasn't
about to go to the dogs I'd be more concerned. Apple can enter into a lengthy
legal wrangle and wait for the company in question to fold.

~~~
philhippus
Even if the company folds, the name 'iPad' had already been registered before
Apple decided to use it, and the more 'iPad's' Apple sells in China, the more
they will have to pay up eventually.

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zephjc
I'm sure whoever decided this got a nice kickback.

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ChrisArchitect
So I can't get a real iPad from a fake Apple store in China? I guess Apple
will have to open some more real stores and sell renamed 'fake' iPads under
another name. haha

