Its products are so popular that even vain young people chip in to buy the latest apple products and sell them to their kidneys.
Finally, apples that suck gold all day are sometimes forced to vomit blood. Unfortunately, the money did not give back to consumers who loved their products, but filled the bottomless pit of losses of domestic enterprises on the verge of bankruptcy.
On July 2, the Guangdong Higher People's Court announced in Weibo that Apple and Shenzhen Proview had reached a settlement on the iPad trademark case, and Apple paid Shenzhen Proview 60 million US dollars.
This means that all trademark kidnappings in legal cloaks have been settled.
Both parties involved expressed helplessness or even unhappiness. The actual big winner, Shenzhen Proview Yang Rongshan, said that he was not satisfied with the result, but it was acceptable.
Apple has no choice but to swallow the bitter fruit. After all, due to the negligence caused by its initial arrogance, when the ipad produced several generations of products and the sales volume increased, it suddenly faced the dilemma of being forced to change its name. However, it is said that after the iPad came out, it was found that all kinds of PADs of A-Z in mainland trademarks have been registered. Paying $60 million to Proview has become a rational choice with the lowest cost.
A black humor situation was born: a company that has never made any contribution to global consumers by ipad has successfully knocked out the actual founder of this industry, and this huge sum of money is not enough to repay the existing debts.
For Apple, it suffered from Waterloo with China characteristics.
According to the current laws and regulations in China, it is not much more difficult to register a trademark than to name a child. This nominally encourages Chinese people to pay attention to and protect their awareness of intellectual property rights, thus promoting innovation and substantive development. However, due to the principle of registration first, the phenomenon of malicious registration of trademarks has been caused.
Many famous enterprises have frequently become the object of rip-offs, and the names of some celebrities and even heroes are often registered in homophones, which has caused a lot of controversy. Coupled with extensive examination and approval, lack of supervision, and the political achievements thinking that relevant departments attach importance to the surge in quantity, it has evolved into a gray interest chain.
Industry experts pointed out that the main purpose of implementing trademark law in developed countries is to promote the development of entities and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises. Take the United States as an example What are the principles of trademark protection? Use first? . That is, if the trademark applicant cannot submit evidence to prove that the trademark has been used, his trademark application will not be approved. In the European Union countries represented by Germany, once the official accepts an application for trademark registration similar to or identical to others, it will take the initiative to inform them of the possibility? Infringement? Enterprise or obligee. In this way, many trademark infringements that are unknown or not concerned are avoided, so that enterprises can raise objections in time and prevent others from preempting them. It is with such legislation and law enforcement principles that trademark maintenance has become an important tool for these countries to occupy the highest profits in the global industrial chain with intellectual property rights for a long time.
That is to say, in western countries, Proview's claim is difficult to get legal support unless it also makes related products and achieves good market performance.
Of course, Apple's lessons are also quite profound. Even though China's laws and regulations may be inconsistent with international practice, how can we be careless enough not to strictly examine trademarks in order to make money in the world's largest market? From this perspective, it is not wrong for Apple to spend $60 million on a lesson.
However, the resulting demonstration effect is already fermenting. Recently, Apple launched a model in 2009? Snow leopard? The operating system was sued again in China for infringing the trademark right of Jiangsu Snow Leopard Company. I think so, too. This is just the beginning. This is Apple's real problem.
Ironically, Apple paid $60 million for a blood transfusion for a hopeless Proview company, but it was worthless to China business. From the perspective of respecting intellectual property rights, encouraging innovation and developing entities, doing evil is quite encouraging.
Therefore, it is time to revise the laws and regulations that condone quick success and strive to be trademark kidnappers. Otherwise, even if China people register global trademarks, they will not be able to produce products with truly global influence, let alone brands.
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