Remember Apple’s legal battle with Proview to obtain the rights to the iPad name in China? Well that was just one of the high-profile cases that have prompted the Chinese government to crack down on what it calls “malicious” trademark registrations.
Apple had a long dispute with Proview, which had previously used the name “iPAD” for a product that is no longer sold. Nearly bankrupt, Proview managed to receive $60 million from Apple for the rights to the iPad name this year.
The Apple-Proview fight over the iPad name was one dispute highlighted by Reuters on Monday in a report that revealed the Chinese government plans to get serious about trademark issues. The problems are so common that foreign governments, including the U.S., have pushed China for years to get tougher on copyright laws.
The state media in China on Monday announced that the government plans to crack down on “malicious” trademark registrations with a proposed new amendment, which will offer protection to international brands and give copyright owners the ability to ban others from registering their trademarks or using similar ones.
Apple was also sued back in July over the moniker “Snow Leopard” in use for a previous version of its Mac OS X operating system. Also earlier this year, Apple was forced to pay a Chinese encyclopedia publisher $82,000 over App Store piracy.
