Kotaku: Apple's iPads are disappearing from Chinese stores shelves. The reason is that a Chinese company called Proview is contesting the use of the iPad moniker.
Think about it for a minute, someone from China is willing to sue because the other parties devices has a similar name. Lets not forget that the alleged ipad looks almost exactly like an e-mac from 2003!
The patent g*d's must be laughing.(really hard) lol
It is pretty funny. Especially since China violates so many laws and patents and doesn't really care when outside companies complain or file lawsuits against them. But woooo if a Chinese company has a problem then it is a completely different problem!
Your missing the point - they are suing Apple in China only.
If the Chinese started selling an a PAD that looked like the IPad in the US market you bet your arse that Apple would sue them for every penny they own.
Apple products are good and worth every penny but I hate how they try to monopolize everything and buy patents just to sue other companies.
I think not able to use iPad name in China can be a good lesson for Apple. Just because Apple thinks their product names are so popular around most of the world, Apple does not own the market as they like to believe.
How many smaller products out there happened to already own the product name earlier by chance and then muscle out from able to use the name because some bigger company decided they have more rights to take over the product name?
China got lucky that someone already took iPad name. Apple is like any other brand, live with it and change their product name.
I don't think the iPad name might have been popular for anything other than a tampon company before Apple used it... So you'd think they'd have been safe with that one.
You have a good point there Patriot_Pride. These IT giants are gobbling up patents and smaller companies so they monopolize the market and sue smaller would be competitors.
I'm sure Chinese companies are doing the exact opposite of what these Western companies : patenting names of possible devices that those Western companies might be using them in the future and when they do : BAM! Sue them. Why waste money buying patents and companies when it's cheaper to register a name that no one uses and lay in wait for some big Western company to pick it up along the line.
Here's where things get murky. According to Chinese news source Sina, Proview Shenzhen went broke in Aug. 2010. The Bank of China is now apparently one of 9 companies that own Proview—meaning it's owned by the Chinese government. Apple, it seems, is going up against more than a small bankrupt company. It's going up against China.
It sounds funny .."The First Ipad " such a thing causing worry to apple.
Kinda funny how Proview's "iPad' looks like a Apple mac in 2003.
I think it's funny when big companies do battle in court because they "Pirate" each other ideas....lol.
Now that ladies & gentlemen is what I call irony.
Think about it for a minute, someone from China is willing to sue because the other parties devices has a similar name.
Lets not forget that the alleged ipad looks almost exactly like an e-mac from 2003!
The patent g*d's must be laughing.(really hard) lol