China Meiguo

A Chinese court recently ruled against Apple Inc. in a dispute over the right to sell computer products bearing the name "iPad" in China. Apple had sued a Taiwan-based technology company, accusing it of infringing its trademark in the iPad name. According to the United States Code (and most countries' trademark laws), a trademark is "any word, name, symbol, or design, or any combination thereof, used in commerce to identify and distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from those of another and to indicate the source of the goods." So, the name iPad for example, can be a trademark that identifies computers or computer-related devices.

If Proview's claim is true and its products sold using the iPad trademark are similar to Apple's iPad device, Apple faces a serious obstacle in continuing to sell iPads in China. Apple products are very popular in China and there is a huge amount of market growth in China that Apple surely wants to continue taking advantage of.

Apple iPads already dominate the market for tablet PCs in China

If Apple is infringing Proview's trademark, it would not only be liable for monetary compensation, but would also be prohibited from using the name iPad in China. Apple would still be able to sell iPads, but would have to do so under a different name. If Proview's trademark claim is legitimate as it seems it may be, I suspect that rather than selling iPads under another name, Apple might ultimately agree to buy the rights to the iPad name from Proview. In fact, Apple previously bought rights from Proview to the iPad name in Taiwan and several other Asian countries in which Proview had registered the trademark, but this purchase did not seem to include mainland China. So it appears that Apple may have to pay big bucks to keep selling iPads as "iPads" in China.