The powers that be in North Korea don't seem to care
about international conventions, so perhaps it is no surprise that they would
stick their tongues out at trademark and patent violations. This time, the
target is Apple. A tech company in the country, Ryonghung, has launched a
tablet that it calls the Ryonghung iPad. This is obviously a rip off of the
branding used by Apple for its tablets, right down to the use of the lower case
"i" and capital "P." Considering that Apple introduced the
tablet category back in 2010, there is no question which company used the name
first. And of course, Apple has trademarked the name.
North Korea has ripped off Apple before with its
version of the iMac that was pre-loaded with Red Star 3.0, a complete copy of
OS X. The Ryonghung iPad comes with an unknown operating system and is powered
by a quad-core 1.2 GHz CPU. The tablet also features 1GB of RAM and an 8GB Hard
Disk. It offers a physical keyboard, an HDMI port and has over 40 pre-installed
apps including one that can diagnose 1,200 ailments. Other programs can be
added by inserting separate SD cards.
This would appear to be a layup for Apple's legal
team if it decides to proceed with a lawsuit. So far, there has been no word
out of Cupertino. The Apple iPad name is important to Apple, which goes without
saying. You might recall that back in 2012, Apple paid a Chinese company called
Proview US$ 60 million for the rights to use the iPad name in China. A slip up by
Apple left the iPad name in Proview's hands in the country, and the company
originally sought US$ 2 billion from Apple to buy the rights from them.
