Experts say Proview could benefit from secrecy Apple used to obtain 'iPad' name - Page 2

I recall Disney trying to employ that same tactic to by up land in farther North on the East Coast for a new park but researchers discovered that it was Disney pulling the strings which pushed the land values up making it not worth Disney's effort to buy.

edit: Partially correct: http://news.google.com/newspapers?ni...pg=4435,875498



So it's not right that Apple followed the law but it's right for Proview to have seller's remorse and want to extort more money from Apple? You also think it's right that Apple should roll over regardless of how this could affect how others do business with Apple?

No, the Hong Kong court did NOT order Proview to transfer the trademark. Never happened.

Instead, they issued injunctions AGAINST any transfer of the the trademarks.

Had they held that the trademarks had already been transferred, such injunctions would be meaningless. If they had ordered Proview to transfer the trademark, the injunction would have been meaningless.

Keep retreating. You will reach reality eventually.

The chief beneficiary of that "SPE" is none other than Apple.

Therefore, Proview has every right to sue Apple directly.

We have to look at Apple's INTENT of using the SPE and the intent was clear: to profit from the acquisition of the trademark for future economical gain.

Maybe you should learn something about corporate law.

You need a very, very strong reason to break through the corporate veil - and Proview doesn't have a sufficient reason. It is almost unheard of and certainly not going to happen over a completely legal transaction like this one.

Was that even in contention? What do these statements have to do in response to this article?


A trademark is an expense, not a profit item. The reason to purchase by proxy is pretty clear, just look at how much they're asking now. Just for a trademark, no less, which was for a product Proview had abandoned.

Read the decision. It is quite clear the the HK court ruled that Apple had the rights to the trademark and told Proview not to make any more fraudulent transactions.

Another retreat. Good.

"Had rights" != "The Hong Kong court ruled that the trademark had been transferred to Apple".
"Had rights" != "The Hong Kong court ordered Proview to transfer the trademark to Apple".

Those two things were stated up above by you as facts. Neither of them are true.

Instead, the court issued injunctions preserving the staus quo until those questions recieve a full trial.

If you were to say that the Hong Kong court thought that Apple's allegations deserve a trial, then you would be correct. But you have repeatedly stated that those tow questions had been decided by the Hong Kong court. That is incorrect.

"experts say" = quotations from idiots.

Correct. Proview hasn't made a case that the practice is illegal and likely won't be able to.

Proview claiming ownership when they had already signed bankruptcy documents on the other hand., well that is a different game altogether and most likely 100% illegal. The bankruptcy was not common knowledge and apparently Apple has documentation they were dealing with Proview who claimed ownership and struck the deal. If this is true then Proview sold something they had no right to sell and the courts may find they acted in bad faith and side with Apple. Especially when the banks, the true 'owners', still haven't filed a single case to defend their IP rights. THe lack of defense may be seen as the banks agreement that there's nothing wrong with the sale and Apple is the legal owner of all the mentioned trademarks and not Proview

That is THE most important detail. the 'IPAD' was nothing like what Apple created. There was no competition and never has been.

Another very important detail is the claim by Proview that they had no idea they were dealing with Apple. That's BS to a degree. They may not have known but they should have suspected given the rumors that went out the minute after this deal was rumored. Every site out there posed the question that IP Application Development was either a front for Apple or if real working on Apple's behalf because of the whole iThing name game. Either Proview didn't bother to research the buyer (and should pay for their stupidity) or didn't care at the time. And in trademark law, not caring is considered giving up your rights.

But that's not the case in patent law, which bugs the heck out of me.

They offered money to a failing company on a name they could have argued was for the taking because Proview wasn't using it on any product and hadn't been for a while. What 'ain't right' about that.


Proview sold the rights, Apple has proven this. Proview has basically admitted this. They weren't forced to file the law suits which originally claimed they didn't include China in the sale (which was a lie). They weren't forced when found out in their lie to then claim that such proxy tactics are illegal (which they still haven't turned up a law to back up that claim) and so on. Proview created this cost on themselves and only they are to blame for it. Apple shouldn't pay them anything in that regard.

As for the bully claim. Given that Apple has been able to back up their claims and Proview hasn't, there are few folks, other than perhaps yourself, that are saying that Apple is acting like a bully

What about the lies Proview has told. Claiming ownership of rights in China. Going on documented papers to sell something they didn't have the rights to. What about the recently revealed huge lie that they had already going into bankruptcy at that point and perhaps didn't own any of the rights at all at that point, or at least didn't have the legal right to sell them.

Apple used a legally allowed fiction to get an honest price for a trademark being used on a product that was brand new and might or might not sell.

Proview's lies on the other hand were likely not so legal. Or rather the actions accompanying them were not.

In response, jragosta exhibited a quote from the Wall Street Journal:


Since the earlier agreement was a purchase and sale agreement, according to my understanding of the word "bought" this third party analysis says the court ruled the trademark was bought but not delivered.

You forget simply not selling in China at all. Put it on the government to get off their lazy butts and enforce the restriction as is their duty.

Frankly I think Apple could go that route rather than change the name from what they have already bought and can document. And it wouldn't surprise me if they filed WTO claims against China over the whole deal and pulled all iPad manufacturing out of China at the earliest possible time. China has played some rather nasty games with companies and IP and it's high time someone smack them in the head over it. Apple might be just the company to do it.

well, the ones about who they were buying it for and why seem pretty clear, and the one about not being in a position of selling similar or competing products too.

good enough for you, or do you still have your hands over your ears and eyes?

No, the earlier agreement was evidenced by a series of emails. There was no P&S.

Instead, there were emails from the Chinese company, followed by a transaction entered into by the Taiwan company.

The Chinese company owned the Chinese trademark. The Taiwan company did not.

Never give a sucker a dime.

At least Apple stay true to form.

Great point. Given the importance Apple places on names, I suspect they purchased "iPad" among many other potential names without knowing at the time what name Steve Jobs was going to go with. We should all recall the grief Apple took when this "iPad" name was announced, and the MadTV skit playing on the iPod, iPad name. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lskbO1k9VO0

Apple's defense should be the prices they paid for all the other "i" names they purchased in anticipation of the actual launch.

First, those statements were not made by Apple. So Apple didn't lie.

Second, were you present at the discussions? Do you know exactly what happened? Keep in mind that you're going on Proview's statements - and they have been shown to be lying on several occasions.

So, once again, what are these obvious lies that you're accusing Apple of?

You still here?

Are you willing to admit your errors of fact?

The Hong Kong court never ruled that Chinese trademark had been transferred to Apple. You were wrong.

The Hong Kong court never ordered Proview to transfer the name to Apple. You were wrong.

So because Disney or Apple is huge, it has to pay more than what something is worth on the market of the day.

So who else was willing to pay $55,000 or more for the letters IPAD at the time of its sale. Doesn't sound like there was a line up of purchasers. Apple has other trade marks it has paid for that it hasn't used and may never use but it is smart business for Apple to keeps its options open.

We can only speculate where Proview would be today if Apple hadn't purchased the iPad name from them at the time. The company was in dire straights at that point. Maybe without the $55000 they would be but a minor memory, infamous only for its attempt to copy an earlier Apple design.

If you wish to live by the sword (blatantly copy another), die by the sword. I'd say it was comeuppance.

What I said was that the Hong Kong court had ruled that Apple bought the trademark and Proview had failed to follow through. They also ordered Proview to stop trying to sell the trademarks and to stop claiming that they owned the trademarks.

Only in your bizarre little world would you use the Hong Kong decision to claim that Apple was wrong.

You are starting to get closer! Keep backpedaling.

I'm not backpedalling at all.

I am, however, getting tired of pointing out how insane your position is that the Hong Kong decision is somehow a loss for Apple.

Apple already produced evidence that ProView representatives from both Taiwan and China were involved in the negotiations and that there was no question as to which office had the rights to sell the trademark. If anyone has committed fraud here, it appears to have been ProView.

If it’s illegal to buy a trademark secretly this way (unlikely) then Apple should get busted for it.

Either way, that seems pretty unrelated to the big case: whether Apple DID buy the trademark in China at all, or whether they did not! (I mean, if Apple didn’t truly obtain the rights at all, then what does it matter what method Apple used to fail to obtain them?)

I’m still waiting for Proview (the parent company that sold the name) to sue Proview (the subsidiary that changed its mind 2 years later). It would be fittingly absurd.

Disney did the same when they went shopping for large tracts of land near Orlando Florida. Had they gone shopping as "The Walt Disney Co", sellers would have quickly figured out their plans to build a new theme park and would have taken them to the cleaners.

Likely the same way Apple has purchased parcels of property in Cupertino. SOP, I would think.

I never said that the Hong Kong decision is a loss for Apple.

You can either quote me on that, or backpedal faster. Or run away.

Two out of three ain't bad. Schenzen owned the Chinese trademark. Apple accepted a purported transfer from Taiwan.

The last sentence reminds me -- how is the Cisco iPhone selling these days ?!?
More seriously, did Apple have to pay Cisco a huge sum for that particular trademark?

BS on your viewpoint. You sell things for what you can get at the time and be happy with that or you don't sell it. It shouldn't matter who you are selling it to.

True! However, at the time this "other company" was buying the iPad name from Proview, it was also securing the name from other entities. If it were known that Apple was interested in the iPad name, before it could secure all the needed rights, people would have been camping on all sorts of web site names that would have had iPad as part of the name.
The cost of doing business for Apple would have been high and people like Proview trying to extort money like crazy. I have to gove it to Proview for having the balls to go after Apple even after selling the name.to this other company that did business for Apple to secure the name. If Apple did pay this other company even $1 for the name, then Apple is the rightful owner and Proview needs to pick a fight with the intermediary... not Apple.

So you are telling me if my step dad who is extremely wealthy has me (who is not wealthy) go buy something at the local pawn shop for him (where they tend to make prices up on the spot), we have been dishonest? Please people buy things for other people. Companies buy things for other companies. There is no dishonestly in having a proxy purchase something for you. It happens in the world of real estate all thing time. Do you think when Warren Buffet started gobbling up Intel stock, the parties he was buying it from knew it was Buffet buying the stock? They aren't. Why aren't investors like Buffet required to disclose when they are buying large amounts of public stock before they buy the stock? Shouldn't sellers like me be required to know who is buying it? Yet, it isn't until after the stock is bought that we the public know who bought it all.

What made the iPad name valuable was what Apple did with the name. Further, in the US you can only own a trademark for a product or service actually in use. Proview wasn't continuing to use the trademark. Apple was just tying up possible loose ends when in reality it probably could have used the mark and not been in trouble. Moreover, any company that put an "i" in front of the name after the iPod and iMac was looking to capitalize off Apple's trademarks. Just like when Cisco went and trademarked the name iPhone after the press for years before where calling Apple's unannounced product the iPhone. Cisco wouldn't have trademarked that name had it not been for Apple's association and use of "i" in its trademarks. Same here with Proview. Proview selected the name because of Apple.

Apple shouldn't have to pay a premium for something that is worthless to any party other than Apple.

I am willing to bet Apple paid Cisco nothing. If it was something, it was close to nothing. Years before Cisco trademarked the name iPhone people had been calling Apple's unannounced phone an iPhone. Cisco was trading off the goodwill of Apple's use of "i" in it's other products names. Apple likely would have beat Cisco in Court.

[In reference to the "experts"]

What rubbish. So anyone that is looking to buy a trademark has to tell the seller what their plans are? I don't see anything wrong with Apple using a "front company", they've acted legally and reasonably in purchasing the trademark.

Please.

What case does Proview have? They sold the iPad trademark to a company. Whether that company is ACME, Apple, IP Applications or ASuperDuperSecretProjectYouShouldChargeMoreForThis Trademark, it doesn't matter. They sold it, and they didn't transfer it, and since then they've been up to funny business (or "conspiracy to defraud and injure" in legal parlance).

Edit: Yes, Apple's proxy company providing a false name and a false motivation for purchasing the trademark could be rationally looked at as a legitimate issue. But as I mention in the other thread, in light of Proview's track record, it is hard for them to be pointing the finger.

The fact remains that Mr. Yang, acting for all Proview companies, entered a written contract to sell the China Trademark, and didn't do so. Now he claims that Apple didn't buy the non-China Trademarks because Apple was so on and so forth, despite the records showing the non-China Trademarks being transferred to Apple.

If there was a mistake, he was given ample opportunity to rectify it, and he didn't, and now is launching all these crazy lawsuits and engaging the corrupt China dictatorship.

I think it's quite clear that it is conspiracy to defraud and injure, there has no mistake by Mr. Yang, unless the mistake has occured due to an illness, of which I would empathise with, but have not heard about.

"I have never encountered this level of ruse," said New York-based trademark attorney Martin Schwimmer of Apple's approach."

LOL.

Martin must be separated at birth from Alan Greenspan. I wouldn't say this too loudly, Mr. Schwimmer, some of your clients might not like that you fell off the turnip truck just yesterday.

Maybe we can introduce him to holding companies, subsidiaries and blind trusts as well.

You are right, not letting people know how rich you are would mean that Rush Limbaugh has to go back and pay more for those OxyContin tablets he had his maid purchase...