So you might have heard of the ongoing legal battle Apple is facing in China. A quick refresher if you haven’t: a company called Proview owns the trademark to the name iPad. And they’re being pretty successful at shaking down Apple to use it, to the tune of $2billion.
But the irony in this case is that the product over which Proview owns the name, the iPad… is a pretty blatant clone of the early iMac design, as you can see above. It was supposed to stand for Internet Personal Access Device. And according to representatives of the company, they did sell about 20,000 of these between 1998 and 2009.
The more detailed version of what’s happening is that Proview is bankrupt. And the 8 banks that have now seized their assets have realized that capitalizing on the name iPad might be the only way for them to see any of the money that is owed to them.
So despite Apple having secured the rights to the name back in 2010 for $35,000, the banks have now decided to just ignore that and put the squeeze on cash-flush Apple. And despite a Hong Kong court siding with Cupertino last year, a recent mainland verdict could make it harder for the iPad to remain on the market in China… at least until Apple pays up.
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