applevsproview.docx

7/27/2019 applevsproview.docx

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Apple inc. Vs. Proview: iPad Trademark

Background

iPad yang menguasai pasar tablet dunia, kena sandungan di China. Hal ini terkait

dengan perkara nama iPad yang diklaim oleh sebuah perusahaanberbasis diHongkong sebagai miliknya. Proview nama perusahaan tersebut mengklaim

bahwa nama iPad yang telah mereka jual kepada Apple Inc. tidak termasuk

untuk diperjualbelikan di negara China. Oleh karena Apple Inc. kemudian

memasarkan tablet tersebut di China, Proview mengajukan gugatan kepada

pengadilan yang kemudian oleh sebuah pengadilan menengah di Huizhou,

sebuah kota di Selatan China dikabulkan.

Kronologis

April 2010

Kisahnya sudah cukup lama. Pada bulan April tahun 2010 yang lalu, Apple Inc.

menggugat Proview atas kepemilikan merek dagang iPad di China. Gugatan

Apple Inc. tersebut ditolak pengadilan dan Apple Inc. melakukan banding.

Proview sendiri mendaftarkan nama iPad semenjak tahun 2000.

13 Februari 2010

Sebagaimana diketahui, tablet iPad buatan Apple Inc. dirakit di Foxconn sebuah

perusahaan berbasis di China. Dengan adanya permintaan pelarangan ekspor

serta impor iPad oleh Proview ini berarti penghentian penjualan iPad secara

global. Sebelumnya pada tanggal 13 Februari 2012, pejabat China menyita

sebanyak 45 iPad di Shijiazhuang, ibukota provinsi Hebei di utara Cina terkait

dengan keluhan Proview. Hal ini diberitakan olehbgr.com.

14 Februari 2010

Situs teknologi beberapa waktu terakhir ini banyak mengutip sengketa antara

Proview melawan Apple Inc. ini. Sepanjang bulan Februari ini ada beberapa

berita yang memuat perkara ini. Pada tanggal 14 Februari, Proview sebagaimana

dikutip oleh Business Week mengklaim bahwa mereka adalah pemilik merek

dagang iPad untuk China dan meminta badan pabean lokal untuk menghentikanekspor serta impor iPad milik Apple Inc.

17 Februari 2010

Pada tanggal 17 Februari 2012 sebagaimana dilaporkan oleh AFP dan dikutip

olehGoogle, Proview mengancam akan menggugat Apple Inc. di Amerika Serikat

sebesar 2 miliar dollar atas sengeketa pemilikan nama iPad. Dalam laporan yang

ditulis AFP tersebut, Li Su yang mengepalai Hejun Vanguard Group yang bekerja

bersama kreditor untuk merestrukturisasi Proview mengatakan bahwa mereka

sedang memilih satu dari tiga Law Firm untuk menggugat Apple Inc. di Amerika
http://www.bgr.com/2012/02/13/chinese-authorities-seize-ipads-over-trademark-infringement/http://www.bgr.com/2012/02/13/chinese-authorities-seize-ipads-over-trademark-infringement/http://www.bgr.com/2012/02/13/chinese-authorities-seize-ipads-over-trademark-infringement/http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-14/proview-asks-china-customs-to-stop-ipad-imports-exports.htmlhttp://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-14/proview-asks-china-customs-to-stop-ipad-imports-exports.htmlhttp://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-14/proview-asks-china-customs-to-stop-ipad-imports-exports.htmlhttp://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jP9u-4_CY7QzMhjglgyW8FDlWTeA?docId=CNG.52b61ef389e499b8e90bf70047a3d10b.361http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jP9u-4_CY7QzMhjglgyW8FDlWTeA?docId=CNG.52b61ef389e499b8e90bf70047a3d10b.361http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jP9u-4_CY7QzMhjglgyW8FDlWTeA?docId=CNG.52b61ef389e499b8e90bf70047a3d10b.361http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jP9u-4_CY7QzMhjglgyW8FDlWTeA?docId=CNG.52b61ef389e499b8e90bf70047a3d10b.361http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-14/proview-asks-china-customs-to-stop-ipad-imports-exports.htmlhttp://www.bgr.com/2012/02/13/chinese-authorities-seize-ipads-over-trademark-infringement/


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Serikat sebesar 2 miliar dollar AS. Ia mengtakan Proview merupakan pemilik

nama dagang iPad di China.

Putusan Pengadilan

Tidak lama setelah ancaman gugatan di Amerika Serikat ini, kabar baru muncul.

AP sebagaimana dikutip oleh Google, melaporkan bahwa sengketa Apple Inc.

atas merek dagang iPad makin dalam setelah perusahaan Cina yang mengklaim

kepemilikan dari nama iPad tersebut telah mendapatkan keputusan pengadilan

terhadap penjualan komputer tablet iPad di Cina.

Xie Xianghui, pengacara Proview Teknologi mengatakan Pengadilan Rakyat

Menengah di Huizhou, sebuah kota di selatan China provinsi Guangdong, telah

memerintah pada hari Jumat yang lalu bahwa distributor harus menghentikan

penjualan iPad di Cina.

Carolyn Wu juru bicara Apple Inc. mengatakan bahwa Apple Inc. telah membelihak merek dagang iPad dari Proview secara global di sepuluh negara berbeda

beberapa tahun yang lalu. Proview menolak menghormati kesepakatan mereka

dengan Apple Inc. tersebut di pengadilan China dan Hongkong sehingga mereka

berlawanan dengan Apple Inc.

Menariknya seperti sudah disebutkan di atas, iPad dirakit di Foxconn yang

berbasis di China. Dengan basis di China, penjualan iPad di pasar China tidak

terelakkan. Selain itu, iPad juga cukup populer, tidak hanya di China tetapi juga

di seluruh dunia. Dengan dikabulkannya gugatan Proview ini keingingan Apple

Inc. untuk memasarkan iPad lebih banyak di China akan terhalang. Namun

demikian, efeknya terhadap penjualan iPad mungkin sedikit saja, namun

keinginan Apple Inc. untuk memasarkan iPad lebih banyak mungkin saja

terganggu.

Apple Inc. menjual sebanyak 15,4 juta iPad di seluruh dunia pada tiga bulan yang

berakhir Desember 2011 yang lalu. Tidak dirinci seberapa banyak penjualan

yang berhasil dibukukan di China.
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Perbedaan Proview iPAD Proview dan Apple iPad

iPAD versi Proview (Internet Personal Acces Device)

iPad versi Apple (Tablet Computer)

iPAD versi Proview (kompas)

Berdasarkan bentuknya, iPAD bukanlah sebuah komputer tablet, melainkan

sebuah All in One PC yang mirip dengan produk iMac dari Apple, yang kala itu

dipasarkan pada 1998. Secara spesifikasi, iPAD dibekali monitor CRT 15 incidengan resolusi 800 x 600, prosesor 256MHz, RAM 32MB, media penyimpanandata 16GB, dua port USB, 2 jack RJ-11, ethernet, port microphone, dan earphone,


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port keyboard dan mouse, serta port untuk koneksi dengan printer. Sedangkan

sistem operasinya, iPAD berjalan dengan Linux atau Citrix. Produk iPAD initermasuk dalam bagian produk iFamily dari Proview. Perusahaan ini juga

memroduksi perangkat lain, yang semua penamaan produknya diawali dengan

huruh 'i'. Contohnya adalah iDVD, iClient, iPDA, dan iNote.iPad versi Apple (wikipedia)

IPad generasi pertama, Apple memiliki dua jenis model, yakni Wi-Fi dengan Wi-

Fi 802.11a/b/g/n dengan berat 680 gram dan telah dipasarkan sejak 3 April

2010 dan model Wi-Fi + 3G yang memungkinkan pengguna untuk menggunakan

jaringanHSDPAdengan berat 730 gram, yang telah dipasarkan sejak akhir April

2010. Produk ini memiliki desain layar multi-sentuh 9.56x7.47incidengan lebar

layar 9.7 inci atau sekitar 25 sentimeter (cm), yang dilengkapi LED backlight

dengan teknologi IPS (singkatan dari In-Plane Switching), resolusi 1024x768

piksel, kapasitas memori flash drive mulai dari kisaran 16gigabita(Gb) hingga

64 Gb, prosesor 1 gigahertz (GHz) Apple A4, baterai lithium-polymer yang dapat

bertahan hingga 10 jam pemakaian, mendukung pemutaran audio dengan

formatAAC,MP3, VBR, audible, apple lossless, AIFF danWAVserta mendukung

format video H.264 hingga 720p, .m4v, .mp4, .mov, dan MPEG-4. Selain itu juga

terdapat Bluetooth 2.1, kompas digital, GPS, Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n), dock

connector, built-in speaker, mikrofon, 3.5-mm stereo headphone jack dan

menggunakansistem operasiyang sama dengan sistem operasi iPhone.

Referensi dari Kompas

http://tekno.kompas.com/read/2011/12/08/13241922/Kalah.di.Pengadilan..A

pple.Dilarang.Pakai.Merek.iPad

KOMPAS.com - Apple dan reseller China sedang menjalani proses hukum di

pengadilan karena Apple ternyata tidak berhak menggunakan merek "iPad" di

China. Apple dianggap melanggar hak intelektual sebuah perusahaan China yang

telah memiliki merk dagang "iPad" sejak tahun 2000. Awalnya ProviewTechnology (anak perusahaan Taiwan, Proview International) menggugat Apple

sebesar 1,6 miliar dollar AS pada Oktober 2011 untuk pelanggaran hak cipta.

Apple membela diri dengan menyatakan bahwa perusahaan sudah mendapatkanhak cipta atas merek dagang tersebut dari induk perusahaan, yakni Proview

International. Namun pengadilan China menolak pembelaan Apple. Applebalik menggugat untuk mendapatkan hak atas merek dagang setelah ditolak oleh

pemerintah China. Hasilnya, minggu ini, Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court

malah memutuskan bahwa Proview Internasional memenangkan kasus tersebut

dan Apple dipersilakan untuk mengajukan banding. "Orang selalu berpikirperusahaan kecil yang selalu melanggar hak kekayaan intelektual perusahaan

besar. Apple sudah memiliki citra yang baik, sehingga orang tidak akan bisa

membayangkan bahwa Apple telah melanggar hak intelektual kami," ujar XiaoCaiyuan, pengacara dari firma hukum Guangdong Guanghe yang membela
http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSDPAhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSDPAhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSDPAhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incihttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incihttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incihttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentimeterhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentimeterhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikselhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikselhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabitahttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabitahttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabitahttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAChttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAChttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAChttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAVhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAVhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAVhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetoothhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetoothhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kompashttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kompashttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPShttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPShttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fihttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fihttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistem_operasihttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistem_operasihttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistem_operasihttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistem_operasihttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fihttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPShttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kompashttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetoothhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAVhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAChttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabitahttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikselhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentimeterhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incihttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSDPAhttp://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gram


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Proview. Setelah putusan pengadilan tersebut, Proview langsung bergerakcepat untuk menghentikan penjualan iPad oleh reseller di kota-kota China

Selatan seperti Shenzen dan Huizhou. Dalam delapan minggu mendatang

perusahaan ini juga memiliki rencana besar untuk operasi reseller Apple di

seluruh China.

Proview sebetulnya sudah bersedia untuk bernegosiasi, namunApple belum memberi tanggapan. "Kami harap negosiasi kami dengan Apple bisa

sedikit lebih mudah," ujar Li Su, perwakilan dari Proview.

Belum ada pernyataan dari Apple apakah akan membeli kembali merk dagang

"iPad" ke Proview atau menjual produk iPad dengan nama lain di China.

Landasan Hukum

Apple v. Proview (Dan Haris)

http://www.chinalawblog.com/2012/02/apple_v_proview_so_much_to_learn.ht

ml

A reporter called me the other day on the Apple-Proview trademark kerfuffle.

She kept wanting me to give her a quote on what foreign companies should take

away from this dispute and I kept parrying with her, unable to give her just one. I

kept finding myself saying its probably more complicated than that.

Let me back up a bit. As many of you no doubt know, Apple is in a massive

trademark fight with a Shenzhen-based company called Proview. Near as I can

tell, the facts are as follows:

Proview-Shenzhen registered the iPad trade-name before Apple had evermanufactured an iPad.

Proview-Taiwan (a Taiwanese company that is not the same company asProview-Shenzhen) entered into an agreement with Apple (or, more

accurately, a company acting on Apples behalf) to sell its Asian iPad

trademarks to Apple.

Apple claims that agreement with Proview-Taiwan included the PRC iPadtrademark, but Proview is claiming otherwise.

Apple sued Proview (I think Proview-Taiwan, but I am not sure) in HongKong and the Hong Kong court ruled that Apple is entitled to use the iPad

trademark on the Mainland.

Here is where it gets so complicated and here is how I see it:

Proview-Shenzhen still shows up as the owner of the iPad trademark inChina.

It is not clear if Proview-Shenzhen ever contracted with Apple to giveApple the China iPad trademark or any sort of license to use that

trademark.


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It appears that Proview-Taiwan did enter into some sort of trademarksale or licensing agreement with Apple (again, actually the company

acting on Apples behalf), but since Proview-Taiwan did not own the PRC

trademark for iPad, there are some real issues as to the validity of such a

sale or license. Did Proview-Taiwan have any interest in the PRC iPad trademark such

that it could transfer or sell that interest to Apple?

Did Proview-Shenzhen ever agree to sell or license its iPad trademark toApple?

What I find really difficult to believe is that Apple and/or Apples attorneys

would have done a deal to acquire rights to the iPad trademark in China without

having done real due diligence on that trademark. Basic due diligence would

have revealed that the PRC iPad trademark was registered to Proview-Shenzhenand at that point, Apple would have required Proview-Shenzhen (not Proview-

Taiwan) sign on to the contract to assign or license the PRC mark. So the first

thing to be learned from this (maybe) is to do your due diligence and make sure

that when you are buying something or securing a license to something that you

are in fact doing so with the company that is actually authorized to sell or license

that item.

This all came to the fore when Proview-Shenzhen started asking trademark

officials in various Chinese cities to start pullingiPadsfrom store shelves

because those iPads infringe on Proview-Shenzhens trademark. Some cities arepulling iPads from store shelves and this is obviously not good for Apple. [Full

Disclosure: I have a disproportionate percentage of my retirement savings

wrapped up in Apple stock]. Some cities seem to be refusing to do so, in what

appear to be political, not legal, reasons.

Now Proview-Shenzhen is saying that is going to ask China customs to block

exports of Apples iPads from China because they infringe on Proview-

Shenzhens trademark. The media (and even Proview-Shenzhen itself) seem to

believe this will not happen because it would look so bad for China politically.

This is where the real lesson lies. If you are not Apple, I can pretty much assureyou that all of your iPads would be off the shelves in China by now and they

would also not still be leaving China via export. The real lesson then is on how to

prevent this from happening to your trademark and that lesson is really quite

simple. If you want to avoid your product getting pulled off shelves in China

and/or prevented from leaving China, make sure that the trade-names and

trademarks you put on your product (or on its packaging) are actually registered

(or licensed) to you in China. And just to be clear, in China, for purposes of

Chinas trademark law, does not mean in Hong Kong or in Taiwan or in Macau or

in the United States or in Australia or in any other country. If you want Chinatrademark protection, you must register the trademark in China.
http://www.apple.com/ipad/http://www.apple.com/ipad/http://www.apple.com/ipad/http://www.apple.com/ipad/


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Assignment Agreement

http://www.chinahearsay.com/apple-vs-proview-assignment-agreement/

I was going to give this issue a rest for a couple days, but apparently thats notgoing to happen. The challenge of commenting on this case is that new

information keeps coming out. Gives me something to write about, but its tough

on continuity.

OK, latest issue is that the 2009 trademark transfer agreement and at least some

of the related evidence that Apple introduced both in the Shenzhen court case

and the Hong Kong action has been published online. Ill take a look at the

agreement below and leave the rest to another post, if anything in there is worth

talking about.

Big disclaimer: the docs are on theAllthingsD site(h/t Paul Denlinger

(@pdenlinger) for the link). I have no way of verifying the authenticity of these

documents, nor do I know if they have been edited or are otherwise incomplete.

If any of this is true, my analysis might be way off, and Ill be really annoyed (but

hey, Ive come this far, so I cant resist.)

Ill try not to get stuck in the tall legal grass and keep it simple, but there are

some legal procedures at issue here. Lets start with the Assignment Agreement,

which is between Apples intermediary, IP Application Development, Ltd. (lets

call them IPADL for short). Remember that big brand owners commonly use reps

like this to disguise their purchases. Apple didnt want to reveal itself as a deep

pocket for fears of getting taken advantage of; in this case, those fears were

certainly warranted!

Some miscellaneous points about the Agreement:

1. It appears to be two pages long, unless Im missing pages. This is not

unprecedented, but I would never allow a client of mine to sign something like

that unless it was a friendly arrangement, such as parent-subsidiary. Although

the basics are included, there is nowhere near enough protection built into the

Agreement.

2. The signatory is Taiwan Proview. I wasnt 100% sure about this before, since

they do have a Hong Kong holding company.

3. The payment is 35,000 pounds for the entire portfolio, and the marks are all

set forth in an appendix (Schedule A) as one would expect. I dimly recall writing

about this many weeks ago expressing shock that a deal would go through

without the trademark particulars being listed in an appendix like this. So to

confirm, that was in fact done (I would say properly).

4. Post-execution responsibilities. This is the main event, folks. If you look at thepayment clause (Article 1, page 2), it specifies that in consideration of the 35K,
http://allthingsd.com/20120216/take-a-look-at-some-of-apples-evidence-in-proview-ipad-dispute/http://allthingsd.com/20120216/take-a-look-at-some-of-apples-evidence-in-proview-ipad-dispute/http://allthingsd.com/20120216/take-a-look-at-some-of-apples-evidence-in-proview-ipad-dispute/http://allthingsd.com/20120216/take-a-look-at-some-of-apples-evidence-in-proview-ipad-dispute/


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Proview shall transfer the marks. In addition, for each jurisdiction, Proview

shall also execute an assignment document which IPADL can record in that

jurisdiction to evidence the transfer of that Trade Mark.

This is very important! Ive discussed this assignment document several times

before. While the Assignment Agreement we are talking about is the commercialarrangement between the two parties, the assignment document is part of the

application package that needs to be filed with the Trademark Office to

effectuate the transfer itself. You dont just file the contract.

When a commercial transaction requires docs like this to complete the deal,

there are two ways to do this. First, if its possible, you can require all parties to

sign everything and present it at closing (in this case, when the Agreement was

executed). However, this is not always possible or desirable, for a variety of

reasons related to government procedure or payment mechanisms. This can get

complicated, but there are many options, including having multiple payments to

secure cooperation.

Second, you can do what IPADL and Proview did in this instance in Article 1,

which is to include language requiring the IP owner to cooperate with the

purchaser after the Agreement is signed. This is also a very common approach

and one I have used on many occasions.

What if the seller fails to cooperate? Then the purchaser, who has already paid,

has to rely on the contract to enforce their rights. In other words, you can take

the other party to court for breach of contract. As we know, Apple haspursuedthis in Hong Kong, but their limited victory there in an interlocutory ruling does

not translate into getting the trademark back in China. (Another complicated

matter relating to cross-border litigation and enforcement.)

What was the proper approach in this case? Well, Option 1 is always preferable

to the purchaser, assuming you can do it. We dont know whether it was

discussed or not, but this is still my #1 question about this whole dispute: why

didnt IPADL require Proview to present the assignment documentation at

closing? There might be a reason for this, but I still dont know what it is. My

criticisms of Apples lawyers, including Epic Fail characterizations, are mainlyabout this issue.

One more quick (very technical) disclaimer. If youre a practitioner, you might be

thinking, Stan, youve got it all wrong. The assignment application system

doesnt work that way in China. Correct, sort of.

It is my understanding that within the past two years, the Trademark Office has

changed the rules slightly because of a problem with fraudulent transfers. These

days, even if the purchaser files all the docs, the original owner still must

respond to an official notification from the Trademark Office. In other words,

under current rules, Option 1 is no longer viable for trademark in China you
http://allthingsd.com/20120216/heres-the-chinese-court-ruling-backing-apple-in-ipad-trademark-tiff/http://allthingsd.com/20120216/heres-the-chinese-court-ruling-backing-apple-in-ipad-trademark-tiff/http://allthingsd.com/20120216/heres-the-chinese-court-ruling-backing-apple-in-ipad-trademark-tiff/http://allthingsd.com/20120216/heres-the-chinese-court-ruling-backing-apple-in-ipad-trademark-tiff/http://allthingsd.com/20120216/heres-the-chinese-court-ruling-backing-apple-in-ipad-trademark-tiff/http://allthingsd.com/20120216/heres-the-chinese-court-ruling-backing-apple-in-ipad-trademark-tiff/


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will always need the cooperation of the other party post-execution. However, the

iPad transfer deal went down in 2009, before these new rules went into effect.

Bottom line: looking at the Agreement doesnt fundamentally change my mind on

any of this. Proview still broke its promise and Apple still didnt mandate the

best closing procedures. The only surprising bit is the length of the agreementitself. Apples best shot here is still the Shenzhen appellate case that will begin on

February 29.

Landasan lain: http://www.chinalawblog.com/2011/07/trademark.html

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