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Battle-lines drawn in iPad showdown
The Chinese legal battle over the iPad trademark could have global implications for the in-demand Apple product, as bans and predicted shortages open the tablet market for rivals.
Apple founder, the late Steve Jobs: trademark row in China
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Apple, currently fighting the lawsuit brought by debt-ridden Chinese electronics manufacturer Proview Technology (Shenzhen), has already seen retailers in more than 10 Chinese cities remove the iPad device from their shelves. This follows a recent court ruling in Guangzhou to prohibit an electronics retailer from selling the tablet PC.
The controversial move came after Proview claimed it held the rights to the iPad name in China. However, Apple maintains that it bought Proview’s worldwide rights to the trademark in 10 different countries several years ago.
Market shareApple’s iPad has a huge slice of the tablet market in China with a 76 per cent share. Lenovo Group and Samsung Electronics will certainly be looking to boost their numbers as the ban kicks in, having only 7 per cent and 3 per cent shares respectively.
‘Apple’s loss could be Lenovo and Samsung’s gains,’ Jonathan Ng, an analyst at Malaysian financial services company CIMB, told the Reuters news agency.
The supply chain for the iPad could also be severely affected, as all supplies of the device come from China. A report in The Independent newspaper in the UK suggests that Proview may seek up to 10 billion Yuan (£1bn) in compensation from the US giants to relinquish the trademark.
Censorship
Meanwhile, fellow Fleet Street newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported the latest concerns around Internet censorship laws in China as the it suggested that Chinese censors have erased coverage a £3.7million donation to Cambridge University. Although Cambridge did not find evidence of a link between the unknown ‘Chong Hua’ foundation and the Chinese Government, it has since been revealed that China’s state-backed censorship machine has moved to erase the story in China.
This has renewed suggestions that the Chinese government is attempting to buy influence at Britain’s leading university.
