There’s been an ongoing legal battle between Apple and a Chinese company which already had the trademark for iPad, which has caused Apple to pull the product from the shelves, and threaten a defamation lawsuit. For many observers, this whole debacle has been absurd, due to China’s famously poor attention to IP laws, a fact only further demonstrated by this article from ChinaDaily. According to the report, 39 companies are trying to trademark iPad and iPhone in categories that Apple hasn’t touched, and six have gained preliminary approval.
See, Apple didn’t trademark in all of China’s 45 commercial categories, so that means that people are pushing to register things like flashlights, shoes, pharmaceuticals, concrete, lenses, and more.
Now, you could say that it’s Apple’s fault for not applying their trademark more widely, but to me it screams of a society with an endemic problem with trademark violation. And while none of these applications have gone through, it might just be a matter of time.
[via Kotaku]
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