New York Times:
Apple Inc. defended itself in a local court here Wednesday against allegations that it does not own rights to the iPad trademark in China, a challenge that threatens to prevent the company from selling one of its most popular products in one of its fastest growing markets.
The heated, four-hour session at the Shanghai Pudong New Area People’s Court ended, though, without the local district judge issuing any ruling or giving any public indication of how the case would be resolved.
What ever I’ve never understood about this case is the seeming lack of protection for Apple’s “good faith.” It’s not like they just used the trademark arbitrarily and unilaterally. As far as I know, Apple bought the trademark from a company that indicated that it had the right to sell. If Proview in Taiwan didn’t have the rights to sell it, wouldn’t that make them guilty of fraud?
That is Apple’s argument and they apparently have communication etc to back it up.
Proview is claiming that no, they only bought the rights to the countries that the parent country controlled and that didn’t include China. But they haven’t been able to back up that claim.