Apple trademark suit spreads from China to US

Feb 25, 2012, 0:50 GMT

San Francisco - Apple's trademark troubles over the iPad name have spread from China to the United States.

Documents published Friday showed that Chinese company Proview has filed suit against the Silicon Valley consumer electronics giant, claiming that Apple acted fraudulently when it bought the iPad name from Proview in 2006.

The lawsuit was filed February 17 in a state court in Santa Clara, California, just as a court in Shanghai blocked Proview's bid to ban Apple from selling the iPad in China. Proview Technology is preparing an appeal of the Chinese ruling, a lawyer for the company told dpa.

The US lawsuit claimed that Apple set up a dummy company called IP Application Development to negotiate with Proview for the iPad trademark, claiming that it wanted the moniker as an abbreviation of the company's name, and assuring Proview that it would never market a competing product.

The company alleged that the letter was signed by an Apple representative using a fictitious name, and that further fraud was committed by both concealing who was behind the straw company and lying about how the iPad name would be used.

Proview eventually sold the iPad trademark to IP Application Development for around 55,000 dollars in 2009, but is now asking the court to declare that agreement an illegal contract and ban Apple from using the iPad name.

Court filing: http://bit.ly/zd1kl1.

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