Proview is a Chinese company that for several months has been trying to ban the sale of the iPad 2 tablet in China and in some provinces managed to do this.Apple obtained last week a victory in a Shanghai court that refused to ban the sale of the iPad tablet in that region, and today those from Proview I'm talking about the lawsuit filed by Apple in the USA. The company claims that today it has updated its complaint filed in a court in California and accuses Apple of using fraudulent practices to buy the iPad brand.
The complaint provides evidence that the December 23, 2009 agreement that Proview Taiwan entered into was fraudulently induced by the concealment and suppression of material facts by Apple's agents, and that, as a result, the 2009 agreement is void. Once the agreement is voided for fraud, the iPad trademarks in the European Union, South Korea, Mexico, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam will revert back to Proview Taiwan.
The Chinese company claims that Apple misled it regarding the nature of the acquisition and hid certain material facts that would have prevented the Proview company from concluding the agreement, which should now be considered null and void. Those from Proview claim that Apple created a company called IP Application Development LTD. and was used by Farncombe International to acquire the iPad brand. When the purchase was made, the people from Proview did not know that Apple was behind the business and they were promised that the brand would not be used for products that compete with those of Proview, the company representatives were then misled by the people who participated in the conclusion of the agreement.
To further this deception, Apple used an intermediary, Farncombe International and its Managing Director, Graham Robinson, to create an elaborate but false pretext for the purchase of Proview's IPAD trademarks. Apple created a special purpose company named IP Application Development Limited ("IPAD Ltd."), then concealed the fact that this company was acting as an agent of Apple. Graham Robinson further concealed Apple's involvement by adopting a false alias, Jonathan Hargreaves, which he used when negotiating with Proview.
In short, Proview claims that it was tricked and did not know that it would sell the iPad brand to a company that is going to build a tablet. The stake of this process is the annulment of the agreement between Proview and Apple, and a favorable decision on this request will leave the Apple company without the possibility of using the iPad brand in the European Union, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. If the agreement will be canceled then Proview Taiwan will become the owner of the rights regarding the brand and Apple would have to acquire them again.
Apple is in an extremely delicate situation and the 2 billion requested by Proview to stop the lawsuits could turn into 10 or 20 if Apple loses the US lawsuit.
