Apple Suffers Setback in China Lawsuit Loss 苹果在华商标侵权案初尝苦果

By newsdoug on December 8, 2011

Apple loses battle of the gavel in China Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) may be able to bully big names like Samsung (Seoul: 005930) by suing them in Western courtrooms over intellectual property (IP) infringement claims, but it may find the tactic more difficult to pursue in China, where it has just lost a major trademark lawsuit to a much smaller Taiwanese player. According to domestic media reports, a court in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen has ruled against Apple, the world’s biggest tech company, in a lawsuit it brought against Proview (HKEx: 334) claiming infringement of its iPad trademark. (English article) The case looks a bit complex, as Proview apparently registered the iPad name all the way back in 2000, well before iPads or even iPhones existed. Apple sued Proview in Britain in 2006 over the matter, claiming the Taiwan company was no longer using the name and thus had lost the rights to it. But clearly the matter was never fully settled, leading to the latest action in Shenzhen. Proview is a relatively big Taiwanese company, but still nowhere near as large as Samsung, which is being sued by Apple in various courts throughout the world over IP infringement allegations related to Samsung’s use of Google’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android operating system in its smartphones. Back in September, Apple filed for and received a number of Chinese patents related to its IP and trademarks, leading me to suspect it was planning to bring its “fight them with litigation” approach to China, targeting not only Samsung but also a wide range of domestic handset makers including Lenovo (HKEx: 992) and ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 000063) that also produce models using Android. (previous post) This setback for Apple in Shenzhen shows that the Chinese courts may not be as receptive to Apple’s bullying tactics as some Western courts, which may make the company think twice about its use of litigation as a tool in China for its ongoing global anti-Android drive.

Bottom line: Apple’s loss of a trademark infringement case in Shenzhen means it may have a difficult time bringing its litigious anti-Android campaign to China.

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