Proview parks IPAD battle tanks on Apple's US lawn Asian monitor biz Proview has taken its legal scrap with Apple to the US - and alleged that it was hoodwinked when it sold its IPAD trademark to the fruity tech titan in 2009. In a lawsuit filed last week in Santa Clara County, Taiwan-based Proview Electronics and Shenzen entity Proview Technology claimed that Apple …
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If their roles were reversed im sure Apple would have no hesitation whatsoever in their army of lawyers descending on Proview taking any action they could. Apple can harldy complain when some one else uses their own often used tactics back onto on them.
So good luck Proview I say, and whatever happens Apple can easily withstand paying them a few measly $millions damages to sort this out.
and just maybe (but probably not) Apple will learn its about time that they played fair too in all of their other ongoing patent battles.
I guess it will come down to the wording of the sale of the trademark - much like Apple vs Apple Music. If there was agreement in not using the TM for some tablet type computing device (or nebulous, encompassing terminology), then maybe Proview has a leg or two to stand on. If it was just a purchase of all rights to the mark, then they are like the proverbial Black Knight, with no legs.
It's all in the fine print, I'm sure. Or in 0.0001 point Comic Sans font embedded in a microdot on the 23rd i on p145 of the agreement.
I actually have a pretty big problem with that. What Apple did was smart (for them). Setting up a front company to purchase the trademark so Proview wouldn't be tempted to ask for more probably saved them a ton of money. But this will only work a few times before the general population catches on. Then, companies like Proview are going to look at these deals with a little more scrutiny and say "Ha! Your company has only been around for a month and you want to purchase the trademark rights to iSomewhatBiggerPad? Nice try,[Apple/Google/Microsoft/IBM/sufficiently rich company], $10 billion please." Of course, when it's not Apple/Google/Microsoft/IBM/sufficiently rich company and some poor brand new startup is just trying to get their product out as fast as they can with the *perfect* name and can't afford $10 billion, true innovation suffers. So in the end, we all lose because iSomewhatBiggerPad was going to be everything we ever wanted and more.
Preemptive strike on commentards: You'll have to use your imagination and replace iSomewhatBiggerPad with a good name, like Dropbox, if you're particularly daft. And ask yourself, would Dropbox be a promising startup if it didn't have a good name, i.e. would you ever use a service called "File Share Thingy"? I don't think so.
Like it. Like it a lot.
Tell China that they still own the ipad trademark. Tell the US that apple bought the trademark off them and it wasn't fair. That's some seriously good joined up thinking there.
Anyway, no matter how bad these bottom feeders are, they still have my full, unwavering support throughout their fight with apple. I'd support anyone against apple because apple are the problem with their stupid "design patents" and their attempts to patent keyboards from the 70s. Hell I'm even happy for *lawyers* to benefit from all this stupidity!
GO PROVIEW! GO SAMSUNG!
On the one hand Proview claim they own the name and on the other they were hoodwinked when they *sold* it?! Can't do their Chinese claim any good...
Meanwhile (and I do mean 'mean;), what's going on with all the (to my mind) irrational Apple-bashing? (It'll only end in bruises.)
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