Chinese tech firm sues Apple for trademark infringement

A Chinese technology company in Shanghai is suing Apple Inc. and another local company for infringement of its trademark and unfair competition, a local court said on Monday.

Representatives of Shanghai Yishijia Network Technology Co., Ltd filed a lawsuit against Apple and Shanghai Woshang Information technology Co., Ltd over the usage right of a trademark Yishijia owns on Apple's App Store, and are asking for compensation of more than 100 million yuan (about 16 million U.S. dollars), according to the Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People's Court. The court has accepted the lawsuit.

The dispute began in April, when Yishijia applied to upload the mobile application for Homevv, an online shopping platform that it developed, on the App Store, but was rejected by Apple as another app bearing the same trademark by Woshang was already there.

Yishijia, which has owned the trademark of Homevv since 2010, asked Apple to take Woshang's app off the store multiple times but was rejected.

Citing the loss of clients and market share, Yishijia demands that Apple remove Woshang's app from the App Store, and that Woshang stop using the trademark of Homevv. It also demands a public apology from the two companies.

Apple has faced a spate of lawsuits in China in recent years.

In 2013, Shanghai Zhizhen Network Technology Co, the developer of voice-recognition technology Xiao i Robot, accused the U.S. tech giant of intellectual property right infringement regarding software used in its popular Siri software.

In 2012, Apple stood trial in Beijing for allegedly selling unlicensed electronic versions of books by eight Chinese writers via the App Store.