Just a few days ago, we wondered if "Apple's $60M iPad Deal Could Make China Trademark Nightmare Worse." Well, it's worse.

Apple has just been hit with not one but two new trademark lawsuits from Chinese companies. First, a company specializing in household chemicals named "Snow Leopard" has filed suit against Apple's "Snow Leopard" operating system.

Now, Siri is in trouble.Continue reading...

Apple's iPad trademark nightmare in China is over. The AP reports that, after what seemed like endless haggling, face giving and face loss, Apple has agreed to settle and pay Taiwan's Proview for the trademark rights to "iPad" for what is now Apple's second largest market, China. For anyone with experience in China, the deal looks a lot like a typical buying experience.

Proview — the trademark seller — saw a 老外 (lǎowài) it thought it could rip off and set its price at $400 million. Apple, revealing itself to in fact be a 老油条 (lăoyóutiáo), countered (rumor has it) by offering $16 million. Proview threw up its arms, laughed, complained that it couldn't feed its family for that price, and countered. This went on for a long time until Proview finally offered the trademark for $60 million, and would throw in a "I Climbed the Great Wall" t-shirt for free. Apple took it.

It's a win for Apple, and not a loss for Proview. But it may prove to be a disaster for other brands in China, as Apple's payoff may just embolden China's already extremely bold trademark squatters.Continue reading...

Apple pays $60M to end iPad trademark dispute in China, looks to secure ipad3.com domain.

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"If you don't have one, you're a loser."

So reads the English-language copy at the bottom of a poster in the window of an Apple "authorized reseller" on Hongmei Road in Shanghai. To Americans, it's another funny bit of long-in-translation Chinglish. But, increasingly, it's a bit of dead serious marketplace analysis in China. When the brand's history is written, the week that it announced sales numbers in China that Apple's CEO called "mind-boggling" may be remembered as the moment Apple's future moved from the West to the East. 

Indeed, a Bloomberg report found that everyone in China from "teachers to furniture makers" were snapping up iPhones because, as a Beijing teacher put it, "A lot of people in my office use it and said I should get one, so I did." But it's beyond the gainfully employed. Even low-earning migrant workers in Shanghai want an iPhone, and demand it by brand name.

In a (legitimate) massage shop not far from the Hongmei Apple "authorized reseller" where an hour-long foot massage can be had for 46 yuan (about $7.60), a masseuse quizzes me about my iPhone. He says he would love to have one. He arrived in Shanghai three years ago from Shaolin (the city famous for kung fu), and has no plans to go back because, he says, "The jobs pay nothing and are all hard."Continue reading...

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Apple may be losing to Proview in China iPad trademark battle.

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Apple slapped with escalating legal challenge by China's Proview, which wants iPad name globally.

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Angry Birds is heading to space.

Apple threatens to sue China's Proview over iPad trademark dispute.

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Google launches Latitude Leaderboards, puts Foursquare on notice.Continue reading...