Because China is a much too "small" country for Proview and the laws are what they are, the company sued Apple right in its native country, the USA. Chinese company says that when Apple purchased the iPad brand from it, it did so using a separate company called IP Application Development, iPad for short, which apparently did not leave the impression that it was involved in the development of a hardware product but of a software product . Proview feels cheated by Apple and wants billions of dollars in damages or a ban on the sale of the product that infringes its copyright.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the Superior Court of the State of California in Santa Clara County on Feb. 17, but previously unreported, claimed that Apple had committed fraud when it used a company set up by one of its law firms, called IP Application Development Ltd., to purchase the iPad trademark from Proview on Dec. 23, 2009 for 35,000 British pounds ($55,000). In emails seen by The Wall Street Journal, a representative purportedly of IP Application Development told Proview that it wanted to acquire the iPad name because it was an abbreviation of its company's title, and that its future products wouldn't compete with Proview's products.
The US lawsuit is "old" for a week and was filed in a state court in Santa Clara, California, and Apple has to defend its rights even in its native country. Considering that Apple used a separate company to buy the rights to use the brand and with that phantom company registered other iPad trademarks, it is possible that the US courts will not support his views.
