Apple has been battling a long legal dispute in China for months with a company who claimed ownership of the iPad name. During the course of proceedings iPads were pulled from Chinese shelves and even global sales were threatened — but now, Apple has ponied up a $US60 million settlement.
The payment, announced by Chinese courts this evening, sees Apple take complete control of the iPad name reports AP. Apple claims to have originally purchased rights to the iPad name from Shenzhen Proview Technology in 2009 for $US55,000 but authorities claimed that the rights were never officially transferred.
A court ruling in December declared that Proview still owned the rights to the name. Now, the Guangdong High People’s Court has said in a statement:
“The iPad dispute resolution is ended. Apple Inc. has transferred $US60 million to the account of the Guangdong High Court as requested in the mediation letter.”
With China Apple’s second-largest market after the US, it accounts form much of the company’s continued growth — which makes the $US60 million settlement a little easier for it to stomach. Proview had apparently hoped to gain as much as $US400 million, but settled for the $US60 million to start paying legal fees. [AP]