Apple’s legal fight for the iPad name in China doesn’t just pit the world’s most-valuable company against a failed Hong Kong display maker. Some of the nation’s biggest banks also are opposing the technology giant.
Apple is appealing a Chinese court ruling that the trademark belongs to a mainland unit of Proview International Holdings Ltd. (334) At the time Apple says it bought those rights, the Shenzhen subsidiary was controlled by creditors including Bank of China Ltd. (3988) and China Minsheng Banking Corp. (1988), according to Proview founder Rowell Yang.
Losing its Feb. 29 appeal would open Apple to lawsuits seeking damages and enable a nationwide ban on iPad sales in the Cupertino, California-based company’s biggest market outside the U.S. The dispute revolves on whether Proview’s Taiwan unit, to which Apple paid 35,000 British pounds ($55,163) to use the iPad name in China, had the right to sell it or whether that rested with the Shenzhen unit and its creditors.
“Right now, the most valuable asset of Proview Group is the iPad trademark registration in China,” said Eugene Low, a trademark lawyer at Mayer Brown JSM in Hong Kong. “Assuming the creditors have control of the affairs of Proview Shenzhen, it might be in their best interest to get a settlement as quickly as possible to monetize the Proview assets.”
Read all about it athttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-23/apple-s-ipad-trademark-battle-reveals-bank-of-china-as-backer-of-proview.html
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