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Apple appeals Chinese iPad trademark rejection

Apple has filed an appeal over a Chinese court's December decision to reject a claim to the iPad name after it leveled a lawsuit against a local company in an attempt to assert control of the trademark in the region.

Citing an announcement from Chinese display manufacturer Proview International, an IDG News Service report published by Computerworld notes that the Cupertino, Calif., company had officially filed for the appeal with the Higher People's Court of Guangdong Province on Jan. 5, 2012 after losing the original case in December, 2011.

Apple's initial suit, which asserted that it legally purchased the iPad trademark in 2010 from a U.K. company named IP Applications after that company bought the rights from a Taiwanese Proview subsidiary, was shot down by the Shenzhen Municipal Court. The ruling stated that because the Shenzhen-based company did not attend the negotiations and the deal was made through a subsidiary, the purchase was void.

The case becomes more confusing as previous reports claim that IP Applications was somehow connected to Apple.

Before launching its increasingly popular tablet in 2010, Apple purchased the iPad trademark from Fujitsu, which started using the moniker for Windows CE-based handheld devices in 2003. The company subsequently purchased the remaining international iPad trademark rights, including those in China, from Proview's Taiwan subsidiary in 2006.

Xie Xianghui, Proview's legal representation, claims that Apple asked for the iPad trademark and legal fee compensation of 4 million yuan, or about $636,000, as part of the most recent appeal. The Shenzhen company has also filed two separate lawsuits seeking to ban iPad sales, though the cases are pending.