Re: Seems simple enough
Re: "The problem is that both the Taiwan and Chinese operations are run by the same guy, Yang Rongshan, and he signed the contract authorising the sale. So it's disingenuous in the extreme for him to now claim that the Taiwan affiliate did not have the authority to sell the trademark."
Ian, perhaps you're unfamiliar with the basic business law concept and consequences of corporate legal existence, so that although Bill Gates or Donald Trump (or Google, or Samsung, or Engulf and Devour, for that matter) may own or manage multiple entities, the bare fact that a common CEO enters into an agreement on behalf of one entity would not in general impose those obligations upon other but legally-distinct child or sibling entities (even if organized as subsidiaries of the seller)?
It's not that extreme of a situation, at least under most western-tradition legal systems which offer many advantages to corporate entities.
But here's a case even more extreme, but true (and I don't know if it applies with respect to Proview): From personal involvement with litigation brought in the US by a very well known large digital content corp., it can be so confusing that an attorney in one branch office of the very large and highly-respected law firm representing the selling entity--who was explicitly charged with the responsibility to handle the firm's client's intellectual property assets as well as those of the client's subsidiaries--did not know that another branch office of the same law firm had separately arranged to sell the client's subsidiary's IP assets.
The former attorney testified it was inconceivable that such discussions and transaction would not have been brought to the first office's attention, and thus no sale of the subsidiary's IP assets had occurred; yet testimony by attorneys at the latter office established that corporate documents in the second law office branch's files showed (in their opinion) that the subsidiary's IP assets had been sold by the parent corp.
The federal district court judge did not end up deciding the issue; the case settled short of trial.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
