We told you yesterday about iPads being pulled off some shelves in parts of China due to a trademark dispute over the tablet’s name. Proview Technology is the company claiming to own the iPad name in China, even though Apple says it paid for the naming rights there. Yang Long-san, a Proview honcho, spoke with Reuters: “The customs have told us that it will be difficult to implement a ban because many Chinese consumers love Apple products. The sheer size of the market is very big.” Not only did Proview want to ban iPads from being sold, it wanted a ban on exports too. That means all those new iPad 3’s supposedly being made at Foxconn and other assembly plants in China couldn’t leave the country. Highly unlikely. And when you break it down, the Proview plan of action looks like it was hatched by a Scooby Doo villain. Proview says it was inventing a tablet called the iPad back in 2000 that functioned like the tablets of today. Yang tells Reuters they would have got away with it too, if it wasn’t for those meddling kids and that dog.
Turns out Proview is in desperate need of cash – its parent company’s stock is doing so poorly that it stopped trading in August of 2010. When Reuters reporters went to the Proview Technology building in Shenzen they “found that the building has largely been abandoned, with its windows shattered and debris strewn liberally.”
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
