Law

Collectors of all things Apple could have a new product to seek out soon, if a recent court decision in China sticks. Apple has lost its bid to prove itself the owner of the iPad trademark in China, after a decision favoring local company Proview Company. Proview registered the iPad name in the EU, several countries and China in the year 2000.

The company sold its international rights to the iPad name for $55k in 2006 to a company named IP Application Development (IPAD). IPAD turned out to be Apple, and Apple has claimed the deal included rights to the Chinese trademark as well. Since then, Proview has sued Apple to the tune of $1.6 billion for using the iPad trademark in China.

As the Tablet Wars heat up, Apple is keeping the pressure on Samsung by winning an injunction blocking German sales of the Galaxy Tab 7.7. This weekend Samsung was forced to pull the device and its advertisements from the IFA show floor and its German website.

The Tab was originally on display with a note that read "Not for sale in Germany," but on Saturday Engadget noticed that Samsung's entire display had been removed from the event.

Samsung has agreed to halt sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 due to its intellectual property battle with Apple. The Korean manufacturer announced on Monday, that it would refrain from advertising or selling the tablet in Australia until September 30.

Apple lawyers told the court that Samsung's modified tab still infringed its patents. Apple said the new version, which was supposed to launch in Australia on September 12, did feature some reduced functionality, but it still copied the iPad's design. Samsung called shenanigans, saying Apple has presented no new evidence on how the modified Galaxy Tab still infringes.

Did Samsung really use Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, as a defense in their intellectual property battle with Apple?

According to Foss Patents, Samsung submitted a screen grab of the Kubrick film that depicts two astronauts using tablet computers while eating lunch. Samsung claims the photo proves that prior art for the general design of the iPad existed before Apple.

Samsung explains:

"Attached hereto as Exhibit D is a true and correct copy of a still image taken from Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey." In a clip from that film lasting about one minute, two astronauts are eating and at the same time using personal tablet computers. The clip can be downloaded online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ8pQVDyaLo. As with the design claimed by the D’889 Patent, the tablet disclosed in the clip has an overall rectangular shape with a dominant display screen, narrow borders, a predominately flat front surface, a flat back surface (which is evident because the tablets are lying flat on the table's surface), and a thin form factor."

A group of plaintiffs from Oakland have discovered that the iPad is prone to overheating when left in direct sunlight or used in an area with high ambient temperatures. They have filed a lawsuit against Apple accusing the company of deceptive advertising, fraud, selling defective tablet computers, and violating California's consumer protection and unfair business practices laws.

All this because they believe that the iPad is marketed with the claim that "reading on iPad is just like reading a book." The disaffected iPad owners were apparently tricked into spending over $500 on an iPad in the belief that it would be perfectly usable in the same weather conditions outdoors as a paper book.

Turns out that Apple is not the first company to use iPad to name one of its products. Apple ran into similar problems after it launched the iPhone in 2007, when Cisco sued for infringement.

Apple and Cisco have settled their disagreement, but what looms on the horizon for the iPad name? Japanese tech company Fujitsu first applied for an iPad trademark in 2003, and currently sells a mobile device under the name.