Apple’s iPad sales risk suspension

A Shanghai court is considering suspending iPad sales at Apple stores in the city, until a trademark dispute between the US consumer electronics retailer and a Shenzhen-based Chinese technology company is solved, a press officer for Pudong New Area People's Court said Tuesday.

In an ongoing battle to win copyrights for the "iPad" trademark in China, the Chinese company, Proview Technology (Shenzhen), filed the lawsuit to halt sales at Apple stores in Shanghai, after the US retailer was fined 240 million yuan ($38 million) last year by Beijing authorities for selling its iPad without permission to use the trademark. But, Apple challenged the case, which has yet to be settled.

The latest suit follows the US retailer's failed attempt in 2010 to sue Proview for trade mark infringement. A Shenzhen court then ruled in favor of the Chinese company on the grounds that Proview had sold LCD electronics using the trademark since 2000 - before Apple launched its iPad in 2010. The ruling was also appealed by Apple, and the case remains ongoing.

At the crux of the dispute over iPad sales at Apple's Shanghai stores, Proview maintains that the US retailer in 2010 purchased only the rights - through a UK-based company from a Proview subsidiary in Taiwan - to use the trademark for tablets sold outside China.

Apple, however, contends that it secured the rights to use the trademark internationally, including within China.

Lawyer Zhu Dongxiao, representing Proview in court, said Tuesday that he was confident about the Shanghai case.

"It's really not hard to see how Apple has been violating Proview's copyrights," the lawyer from Beijing-based Grandall Law Firm, told the Global Times Tuesday, adding that he expected the Shanghai court to make their decision today.

Still, Zhu said that Proview continues to be open to negotiation with the US retailer over its trademark rights in China, despite that "Apple has refused to enter talks about it in the past."

The Pudong New Area People's Court press officer, who asked not to be named, worried Tuesday that too much public attention would affect the verdict, which he said might take at least a month to derive.

"But, if the two parties can reach an agreement sooner, the suit will be withdrawn," he told the Global Times Tuesday.

Multiple requests for an interview made to Apple's Shanghai office by the Global Times Tuesday went unanswered.