Apple pays $60 million to Chinese company that invented the word “iPad” first
SHANGHAI, CHINA – OCTOBER 06: (CHINA OUT) People mourn Apple co-founder Steve Jobs at an Apple store on October 6, 2011 in Shanghai, China. Jobs, who died October 5, 2011 at the age of 56, co-founded Apple in 1976 and is credited with marketing the world’s first personal computer in addition to the popular iPod, iPhone and iPad. (Photo by ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)
Apple may have invented the iPad, but the word "iPad" has apparently been around long before the tablet computer came out. Chinese company Proview bought the rights to the "iPad" trademark as early as the year 2000, Agence France-Presse reported.
Apple later bought the rights to the trademark from a European broker for $55,000, and did so through a proxy name so that the price of the trademark would not be inflated, PC World reported. However, that plan ended up backfiring. Proview later insisted that the Apple trademark purchase did not include trademark rights in China. In other words, if Apple wanted to sell a product in China under the name "iPad," the technology giant would have to pay extra. Proview wanted as much as $1.57 billion, the Toronto Sun reported.
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But both parties have finally agreed to the $60 million pay-out, and "Proview and Apple now no longer have a dispute over the iPad trademark," a lawyer for Proview told Xinhua.
News of the settlement quickly made waves in China, with many locals accusing Proview of resorting to thuggish business practices. “Intellectual property awareness is something to be supported, but Proview is definitely guilty of playing the thug," a social media user in China posted, according to the Wall Street Journal.