In its appeal today before the Guangdong Provincial Higher People’s Court in Guangzhou, Apple, Inc. focused on the role played in negotiations by the supposed general counsel for Proview International Holdings Ltd., the Shenzhen-based company that claims it owns the iPad trademark in China.
Proview registered the iPad trademark in 2001 for an electronic device that failed to catch on with consumers. A company set up by Apple bought the rights to it in 2009 for around $55,000, but Proview claims that deal was only with a Taiwan-based affiliate and covered trademark for markets like Korea and Singapore but not mainland China. Two lower courts in China’s Guangdong province have already ruled in Proview’s favor.
