Computer monitor manufacturer Proview claimed it attempted to market a tablet computer called "I-Pad" 10 years ago, registering trademarks for the IPAD name, reported theFinancial Times (FT).
Proview chairman Yang Rongshan, told the FT Proview Electronics (Taiwan) agreed to sell the "global trademark" IPAD name to a US-registered company, IP Application Development (IPAD) in 2006 and did not suspect any link with Apple.
Proview Technology claims it holds rights to the iPad trademark in China after registering two iPad trademarks in the country, which were not included in the agreement.
"We will sue them for damages in China and in the US", Yang told the FT.
Apple faced legal action over the name iPad when it launched earlier this year. Fujitsu claimed that it owned the US rights to the name iPad as it had developed a handheld stock monitoring computing device used in supermarkets in 2003 with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and VoIP support with the name.
In March, the legal right to the name was transferred from Fujitsu to Apple.
This story was first published by Computer Weekly