But as he gears up for the annual face-to-face meeting with shareholders, a few issues may be causing him angst. Chief among them are in China, where poor labor conditions are in the spotlight and Apple’s iPad trademark is under attack.

The meeting this Thursday comes days after Apple touched a new lifetime high of $526.29 before receding slightly. The stock may get a boost next month, when Apple is expected to unveil a new version of its best-selling iPad.

Apple shares have seen a blistering rally in the past seven weeks, gaining $100 and making Apple the most valuable U.S. company, with $468 billion in market capitalization.

But as much as Apple’s shares rally, working conditions at the company’s manufacturing contractors in China have also attracted attention this year.

Recently, Apple has been trying to redirect the spotlight on its efforts to force its partners to treat their employees better and the iPhone and iPad maker may use Thursday’s meeting to repeat it commitment to improve labor conditions in its supply chain.

“The Fair Labor Association and the audit they are doing of all their (supply) firms is a corporate governance issue that will probably be a reasonably active discussion at the shareholder meeting,” said Tim Lesko, portfolio manager at Granite investment Advisors. Apple share account for about 3 percent of Granite’s equity assets.

The U.S. non-profit labor group Fair Labor Association has begun a study of the working conditions at Apple’s main contract manufacturers, including supplier Foxconn Technology Group’s plants in China, which has been in the news for worker suicides, a plant explosion and poor working conditions.

Another thorny issue that has now started attracting attention from shareholders is the trademark battle moves in China where troubled technology company Proview is seeking to halt the sale of iPad tablets, claiming it owns the iPad trademark in china.

Connor Browne, portfolio manger of Thornburg Value Fund — another Apple investor — wants to see the trademark case settled.

“Apple has positioned itself well in China,” he said. “I would hate to slow the momentum there because of court issues.”

CASH TO COME UP AGAIN

A perennial issue that shareholders zoom in on is Apple’s enormous cash pile. The company now boasts of over $100 a share in cash and securities.

Cook said earlier this month that the company is in very active discussions at the board level about what to do with its cash, asking shareholders to be patient as Apple decides the way forward, stoking speculation that Apple may return some of that money to shareholders through dividends or share buybacks – even if it is only a one-time deal.

Apple’s cash balance is the largest among U.S. technology companies, and many analysts think the company should put at least some of the money to work. The company last bought back shares in 2001 and scrapped its dividend in the mid 1990s.

A dividend could give Apple stock a short-term boost as institutional investors – who typically own only stocks that pay dividends – may buy it.

“It certainly would increase the potential owners for the stock,” Lesko said.

Apple’s annual meeting rarely yields any financial forecasts or product-related news but corporate governance could be part of the discussion.

Last year, in a rare show of strength, Apple shareholders voted for a non-binding proposal to require board directors be elected with a majority vote but Calpers, which put it forward, is reintroducing the measure as Apple has not acted on it.

The largest U.S. pension fund says that policy would better protects investors’ interests but Apple had urged shareholders to vote against the proposal.

The company’s board has long been criticized for its lack of disclosure, particularly about leadership succession while Steve Jobs battled illnesses whose details were not made public.

The PlayStation Vita, already available in Japan, debuts in the U.S. and Europe on Wednesday. A basic, Wi-Fi version will retail at $250, while one that can access 3G cellular networks will go for $300 plus monthly service fees from AT&T.

Sony Corp. is promoting the device with a $50 million marketing blitz “everywhere gamers are and where the general population is,” said Jack Tretton, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America.

Tretton acknowledges it won’t be an easy sell.

People have grown accustomed to playing games on handheld devices that also make phone calls, shoot videos, connect to the Internet, play songs and send text messages. The devices do practically everything but wash your socks.

Why buy a gadget that does only one thing?

“Ultimately, if you consider yourself a gamer, you are going to find yourself migrating up the food chain to dedicated gaming consoles and the Vita,” Tretton said.

Don’t tell that to Christian Thomas, a 20-year-old New York University student who tried out the Vita at a temporary lounge Sony set up to promote the system. At the “social club” in Manhattan’s trendy Lower East Side, players were able to try out Vita before it goes on sale.

“I don’t see myself carrying it around,” Thomas said, while playing “Marvel Vs. Capcom 3.” ”I’m content just picking up ‘Bejeweled’ on my iPhone.”

That’s even though he called the Vita beautiful and said it’s easily the best handheld gadget he’s played with.

The Vita launch is an important one for Sony, although it likely won’t be as big as the debut of a new gaming console. Sony has not announced the next PlayStation, but Nintendo Co. is planning to come out with its Wii U late in the year.

As a device, the Vita is sleek and powerful, melding the console-like controls that gamers are used to with touch screens common in mobile devices. Its dual analog sticks are a first for a handheld device and a must-have for shooter games played from a first-person perspective. Not only does the Vita’s main screen respond to touch, but it also has a touch screen in the back that offers gamers an entirely new way of controlling gameplay.

The Vita has a 5-inch screen, front- and rear-facing cameras and a quad-core processor, which is used in the fastest tablet computers. The Vita also connects to the PlayStation 3, so players for the first time can play the same game regardless of whether they are using a console or a handheld system.

“It’s a very good video game platform,” said Colin Sebastian, an analyst at Baird.

That said, he believes the market has “largely moved beyond this type of experience.”

“I think the dedicated handheld game market is very challenging,” he said. “The odds over the long term are stacked against the Vita.”

Another handheld system, the Nintendo 3DS, has been a disappointment. The gadget, which lets players see 3-D images without special glasses, hasn’t sold as well as expected and was one of the reasons Nintendo reported a net loss in the last nine months of 2011. Though the machine is starting to see sales pick up following a price cut, Nintendo last month lowered its forecast for 3DS sales.

Challenges aside, Sony hyped the launch of the Vita with a lavish party at Siren Studios in Hollywood last week. The likes of “Transformers” co-star Josh Duhamel and “The Hunger Games” actor Liam Hemsworth were in attendance. The gadget was passed around for all to try at the event, while Vita-related tweets were projected on a mammoth wall.

Elsewhere in the U.S., stores were planning midnight launch events, and the most dedicated PlayStation fans were expected to line up in anticipation. Though it may not amount to iPhone proportions, the Vita could become a hit with gamers who want to play shooters and other intense, high-end games that go beyond lunging cartoon birds at annoying green pigs. It may even give rival Nintendo a serious challenge.

Fynn Marselli, an 11-year-old who tried out the Vita at Sony’s lounge, said he’s now mulling the Vita after saving up to buy the Nintendo 3DS. He already has an older DS and an iPod Touch for games. With its touch screen and physical controllers, he said, the Vita is “pretty cool, a little bit of both.”

“It’s a little strange, using both the touch screen and controls,” he said. “I have been playing with it for half an hour and I’m still figuring some things out.”

Because that doesn’t usually happen, he said, “it’s kind of fun. Finally something I don’t pick up and know everything about.”

As of December, Nintendo has sold more than 165 million of its handheld DS devices worldwide, including more than 15 million of the 3DS. Sony, meanwhile, has sold 75.5 million PlayStation Portable devices, the first version of which went on sale in 2005 in the U.S. and the year before in Japan. Sony plans to continue selling the Portable machine.

Xie Xianghui, abogado de la firma Shenzhen Proview Technology, dijo que la Corte Intermedia Popular en la ciudad de Huizhou, provincia de Guangdong, en el sur de China, dispuso el viernes que los distribuidores suspendan las ventas de aparatos iPad en el país.

El fallo, que tuvo amplia difusión en la prensa estatal china, podría no tener repercusiones de largo alcance.

En su disputa con Apple, Proview ha promovido demandas en diversos lugares y ha solicitado a las autoridades comerciales de 40 ciudades que bloqueen las ventas de iPad.

Apple Inc. dijo el lunes en un comunicado que su caso continúa sin una solución judicial definitiva en la parte continental de China. La compañía recurrió ante al Corte Superior de Guangdong un fallo previo a favor de Proview.

Apple insiste en que posee los derechos de marca de la iPad en China.

“Hace varios años que compramos los derechos mundiales de la marca Ipad a Proview en 10 diferentes países. Proview se rehúsa a cumplir su acuerdo con Apple en China, en tanto que un tribunal en Hong Kong ha fallado a favor de Apple en el asunto”, dijo la portavoz de Apple, Carolyn Wu.

La Corte Intermedia Popular de Huizhou no respondió de inmediato a las llamadas telefónicas para que hiciera declaraciones sobre el particular.

El despacho jurídico King & Wood, que representa a Apple, dirigió una carta al presidente de Proview, Rowell Yang, en la que acusa a la firma china de infringir “los principios de la buena fe y el trato justo”, y de hacer declaraciones “falsas y engañosas”.

Proview, fabricante de pantallas LCD con sede en Guangdong, solicitó a las autoridades que confisquen las iPads en China en lo que parece el preludio de una exigencia para que Apple le pague un beneficio económico. Un tribunal en Shanghai escuchará el miércoles a las partes en un caso similar.

Have a suggestion? Let us know in the comments section!

Also check out our picks for The Best iPhone Apps, The Best iPad Apps, and The Best iPad Games.

Angry Birds ($.99)

This notoriously obsession-inducing game begins with the story of some ugly green pigs who stole eggs from their neighboring birds. These birds are now, as you would assume, very angry. Users fling the angry (and squealing) birds at fortified castles inhabited by the green pigs in an attempt to destroy the pigs and get to the next level. It’s a game of trial and error, but birds with different advantages (extra power, wider coverage) and pigs with extra protections (hardhats, etc.) keep things interesting.

Amazing Breaker ($0.99)

If you’re a fan of addictive and challenging puzzle games then check out Amazing Breaker. The goal of the game is to blast the various ice structures with bombs from your launcher. Each blast takes away bits of ice, leaving tiny shards behind. The fewer amounts of shards left over at the end of each round, the better your score. With over 80 levels and full high-resolution retina display graphics – Amazing Breaker is one of those games that is easy to learn but hard to master.

Temple Run (Free)

This addictive game has you running from a pack of gorillas as fast as possible through a temple-like obstacle course. You must make quick turns, jump over logs and bridges, slide underneath rings of fire, collect gold coins and make it as far as you can without getting trampled by the gorillas or meeting your death from a fall or smack in the face. This one’s good for adrenaline junkies and those who like a good race.

Ski-On-Neon (Free)

This skiing game is addictive thanks to the difficulty of getting the slopes just right. It’s a simple game where all you have to do is press your finger to the screen when you want to crouch (going into a downhill slope) or not. The slopes make for tricky timing and you must get to a certain height jump before making it to the next level.

Epoch ($5.99)

This newly released action game has you controlling a robot as it struggles to survive a post-apocalyptic world where humans are no longer around and robots live to fight a never-ending war. The game utilizes a unique cover system and features stunning visuals not typically matched on mobile devices. Endless customization awaits you as you configure your robot with salvaged parts and battle waves of robots in arena-style action.

Fruit Ninja ($.99)

Like Angry Birds, this action game is extremely simple but extraordinarily addictive. Users swipe a finger across the screen to slice fruit as it flies across the screen. Miss slicing one too many and you’re out. Slice multiple pieces of fruit with one swipe for combination points and watch out for flying bombs, which will kill you and your score in an instant. The game features classic and arcade modes as well as multiplayer for Game Center-enabled devices. Turn the sound up because, trust us, hearing your fruit be slashed and splattered is the best part.

Plants vs. Zombies ($2.99)

The much-loved tower defense game that started out as a hit on PC is now available for the iPhone, to the relief of countless fans. Users must defend their homes against hoards of angry zombies attempting an invasion. Planting a variety of zombie-zapping plants will fend off the walking dead, and the more zombies you kill the more plants you can get to defend your home. The game has 50 different levels that feature different scenes and backgrounds. The game stays interesting thanks to the variety of zombies with special skills and tricks.

Sparkle the Game ($2.99)

This action puzzle game puts speed and accuracy to the test as users shoot orbs into a constantly moving line, hoping to make them disappear fast enough that they don’t fall into the dreaded abyss. Users tap the screen where they want to shoot orbs; match three orbs of the same color to make them disappear. Three game modes, different scene locations, and hidden bonuses and secrets keep the action fun. The game is simple in concept, but the entertainment will last hours.

Bejeweled 2 ($.99)

This addictive game is one of the top paid apps of all time, and for good reason. The puzzle game challenges users to match sparkling jewels to get points to get to the next level. The premise is simple but the fun of beating each level is addicting. Different modes allow for intense or relaxed play, and new Facebook integration allows users to challenge their friends to a match.

Where’s My Water? ($.99)

This extremely popular game revolves around an alligator named Swampy who is desperate to take a nice hot shower. To get the water to him, you must cut through rock in just the right places, avoid obstacles, and figure out the puzzle in time before Swampy starts to shiver. The game has over 200 levels and is surprisingly fun and addictive, despite the game’s strange initial premise.

It’s a venture that bundles together Pakistani engineering and Chinese hardware, and shines a light on the military’s controversial foothold in the consumer market. Supporters say it will boost the economy as well as a troubled nation’s self-esteem.

It all comes together at an air force base in Kamra in northern Pakistan, where avionics engineers — when they’re not working on defense projects — assemble the PACPAD 1.

“The original is the iPad, the copy is the PACPAD,” said Mohammad Imran, who stocks the product at his small computer and cell phone shop in a mall in Rawalpindi, a city not far from Kamra and the home of the Pakistani army.

The device runs on Android 2.3, an operating system made by Google and given away for free. At around $200, it’s less than half the price of Apple or Samsung devices and cheaper than other low-end Chinese tablets on the market, with the bonus of a local, one-year guarantee.

The PAC in the name stands for the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, where it is made. The PAC also makes an e-reader and small laptop.

Such endeavors are still at the pilot stage and represent just a sliver of the military’s business portfolio, which encompasses massive land holdings, flour and sugar mills, hotels, travel agents, even a brand of breakfast cereal.

The military is powerful, its businesses are rarely subject to civilian scrutiny, and it has staged three coups since Pakistan became a state in 1947. Many Pakistanis find its economic activities corrupting and say it should focus on entirely on defense.

“I just can’t figure it out,” said Jehan Ara, head of Pakistan’s Software Houses Association, said of the PACPAD. “Even if they could sell a billion units, I can’t see the point. The air force is supposed to be protecting the air space and borders of the country.”

Supporters say the foray into information technology is a boost to national pride for a country vastly overshadowed by archrival India in the high-tech field. Tech websites in the country have shown curiosity or cautious enthusiasm, but say it’s too early to predict how the device will perform. Skeptics claim it’s a vanity project that will never see mass production.

Only a few hundred of each products has been made so far, though a new batch will be completed in the next three months.

“The defense industry is trying to justify its presence by doing more than just produce weapons,” said Ayesha Siddiqa, author of Military Inc., a critical study of military businesses. “Some smart aleck must have thought we can make some money here.”

PAC’s website at http://www.cpmc.pk says the goal is “strengthening the national economy through commercialization” and lauds the collaboration with China — something that likely resonates among nationalists.

China is regarded as a firm ally by Pakistan’s security establishment, whereas the U.S., despite pouring billions of dollars in aid into the country, is seen as fickle and increasingly as an enemy.

These perceptions have heightened as the U.S. intensifies drone attacks on militants based in the Pakistani borderlands. But the military is also a target of those militants. In 2007 the base at Kamra, home to 12,000 workers and their families, nine people died when a cyclist blew himself up at the entrance.

PAC officials suggested the program that produces the PACPAD was modeled in part on the Chinese military’s entry into commercial industry, which lasted two decades until it was ordered to cut back lest it become corrupted and lose sight of its core mission.

The tablet and other devices are made in a low-slung facility, daubed in camouflage paint, near, a factory that produces J-17 Thunder fighter jets with Chinese help.

“It’s about using spare capacity. There are 24 hours in a day, do we waste them or use them to make something?” said Sohail Kalim, PAC’s sales director. “The profits go to the welfare of the people here. There are lots of auditors. They don’t let us do any hanky-panky here.”

PAC builds the PACPAD with a company called Innavtek in a Hong Kong-registered partnership that also builds high-tech parts for the warplanes.

But basic questions go unanswered. Maqsood Arshad, a retired air force officer who is one of the directors, couldn’t say how much money had been invested, how many units the venture hoped to sell and what the profit from each sale was likely to be.

The market for low-cost Android tablets is expanding quickly around the world, with factories in China filling most of the demand. Last year, an Indian company produced the “Aakash” tablet, priced at $50, and sold largely to schoolchildren and students.

Arshad said a second-generation PACPAD would be launched in the next three months, able to connect to the Internet via cell phone networks and other improved features. He said the Kamra facility could produce up to 1,000 devices a day.

During a brief test, The tablet with its 7-inch screen appeared to run well and the screen responsiveness was sharp.

“It seems good, but operation-wise I have to look into it,” said Mohammad Akmal, who had come to the store in Rawalpindi to check the product out. “Within a month or so, we will know.”

In a suit filed last week in San Jose, Apple said the Galaxy Nexus infringes on patents underlying features customers expect from its products. Those include the ability to unlock phones by sliding an image and to search for information by voice.

Samsung spokespersons did not immediately return requests for comment.

With the new suit, Apple is opening up another legal assault on the Korea-based company after taking Samsung to the same court in April of last year. In the earlier case, Apple alleges that Samsung illegally copied iPhone and iPad design features and the look of its screen icons. [nN18125665] That case is still going on, though in December Apple lost a bid for a preliminary bar against Samsung for selling Galaxy phones and tablets.

Apple acknowledged the setback in the new action and said now it is suing over new products and different patents.

In addition to the California cases, Apple and Samsung are waging more than 20 legal fights in at least 10 countries in their war for global leadership of smartphone and tablet markets.

The new case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, is Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, et a 12-00630.

China, the world’s largest mobile phone market, has not been easy for Apple, which is grappling with a lawsuit from a local firm over the iPad name and issues at its suppliers’ factories over wages and working conditions.

With the number of mobile subscribers set to top 1 billion in China this year, there is cut-throat competition among South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Nokia, Apple and local firms Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp.

While Apple regained its top spot as the world’s largest smartphone vendor in the fourth quarter and for last year as a whole, it slipped to 5th place in China, overtaken by ZTE. Apple’s China smartphone market share slid to 7.5 percent from 10.4 percent in July-September.

In the last quarter, Samsung knocked Nokia off the top slot, taking 24.3 percent of the market, more than three times Apple’s share, data from research firm Gartner showed. Nokia’s market share more than halved last year, from above 40 percent in the first quarter to below one fifth by the fourth quarter.

“Chinese handset makers have been actively promoting their smartphones with China’s three telecoms operators, so we saw ZTE and Huawei gain significant market share,” said Taipei-based Gartner analyst CK Lu.

Gartner said this week it expected Apple’s iPhone market share to slip for a couple of quarters as the novelty of its latest 4S model wears off.

In the first quarter of last year, ZTE had a market share of just 3 percent, but ended 2011 ranked 4th with more than 11 percent market share.

Chinese firms are gradually shifting up towards the higher end of the market, unveiling more feature-packed smartphones.

“If you want to sell handsets to the mass market, a simple rule of thumb in China is that the handset price has to be close to 70 percent of the monthly salary,” said Jayesh Easwaramony, an analyst with Frost & Sullivan in Singapore.

“Today, an iPhone is more than two months salary.”

This, said Easwaramony, gives the likes of Huawei and ZTE the opportunity to cater to a mass market that is captivated by the iPhone, but doesn’t have the purchasing power for it.

VALUE FOR MONEY

“The quality of Huawei’s phones is quite high and it’s good value for money compared to the iPhone,” said Dale Dai, a 28-year-old sales executive from Beijing.

Dai, who uses his Huawei phone to write weibo, or Chinese microblogs, surf the Internet and make calls, recently bought a new Honor smartphone for 1,800 yuan ($290), almost a third of the price of a new iPhone 4S at 4,988 yuan.

But given the sheer size of the Chinese market, just targeting the highest end users should be enough for Apple, though it’s not always been a smooth ride.

Last month, shoppers in Beijing threw eggs at the Apple store and fought with police when they were told the iPhone 4S would not be on sale as scheduled.

In Shenzhen, some genuine iPhones and iPads are smuggled in from Hong Kong, while sellers also take advantage of Apple’s popularity by packaging fake iPhones in iPhone 5 boxes – even before the 4S was launched.

In Hong Kong, Apple resorted to an online lottery reservation system for the 4S model after crowd control issues disrupted initial sales.

Analysts expect Apple to stem its slide in market share in China by signing up another carrier.

China Unicom, the country’s No.2 telecoms operator, is currently the only carrier to officially carry the iPhone. It has not officially given its iPhone sales, but analysts estimate it has sold around 3 million iPhones since signing a contract with Apple in 2009.

China Telecom Corp Ltd, the third and smallest operator, is expected to be next to clinch a similar deal with Apple later this year, and analysts predict it would sell about 1.4 million iPhones this year if it can reach a deal with Apple by May, rising to 2-4 million new iPhone users in 2013.

The service, Aereo, launched in New York this week, but it is available only by invitation. It hopes to broaden access to more people next month, and then launch in other cities.

Subscribers pay $12 per month and use their web browsers to access streams from 27 local channels, including the major broadcast networks ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. For now, the service works only on iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches, but Aereo is planning to make it accessible to PC browsers and Android-powered phones as well.

In a test by an Associated Press reporter, the service provided high-quality streams over Wi-Fi to an iPad, but often it wouldn’t show particular channels. The company says kinks are still being worked out of the system.

Aereo has more than $25 million in venture capital backing, with more than $20 million of it coming from a funding round led by InterActiveCorp, which owns Match.com, Ask.com and other websites.

Diller, the chairman of InterActiveCorp and the former CEO of Fox, says he’s “excited” about Aereo and the chance it has to disrupt the way TV is consumed.

Aereo exploits what it believes is a loophole in the laws governing retransmission of local broadcasts. Yet TV networks and stations are unlikely to buy that legal justification, and could drag Aereo to court.

Representatives of CBS, NBC and ABC and the National Association of Broadcasters had no comment on Aereo’s launch.

Cable companies pay local broadcast stations for the right to retransmit their signals to subscribers. Aereo doesn’t, and founder and CEO Chet Kanojia says it doesn’t have to. That’s because Aereo doesn’t use one big antenna to pick up the local broadcasts and relay them to the Internet. Instead, it uses one tiny antenna for each subscriber that’s watching.

Aereo has created a dime-sized TV antenna, and crams hundreds and perhaps thousands of them into boxes the size of a dishwasher. The company places these boxes anywhere they can pick up local TV signals.

“Every one of these little antennas has a person’s name on it,” Kanojia says.

However, he clarified that each subscriber doesn’t necessarily use the same antenna all the time. Subscribers do share antennas — they just don’t use the same antenna at the same time.

Kanojia reasons that because there’s one antenna per subscriber, Aereo is just an intermediary between a viewer and an antenna, sort of like a very long antenna cable. That means, he says, that Aereo not a cable company and doesn’t have to negotiate with TV stations for the right to relay their signals, or pay them.

Scott Flick, a media lawyer and partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP in Washington, thinks Aereo is skating on thin ice, legally speaking.

“When you take somebody’s programming and you make it available on some device that wouldn’t normally receive that, that sounds a lot like retransmission,” which means that Aereo should be paying the TV stations, he says. “The laws here are fairly tight. There’s not a lot of room for wiggle.”

The one-antenna-per-subscriber setup doesn’t look like much of a loophole, Flick says, since courts ruling on retransmission cases have “a fundamental history of saying over the years: ‘Look, if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it’s a duck.’”

NBC, Fox and ABC make their shows available on iPads, iPhones and other tablets and phones through Hulu.com, which doesn’t have live programming or local news. And shows aren’t available on Hulu until the day after they air. Hulu charges $8 per month for access from mobile devices. Cable companies are also making some programming available on iPads and iPhones in the homes of people who subscribe to cable.

Meanwhile, TV stations are trying to make their live feeds accessible on phones through special “mobile DTV” broadcasts. But to receive those, viewers would need phones with special antennas, and phone companies have shown no interest in carrying such phones.

Shenzhen Proview Technology has asked regulators to seize iPads in China in a possible prelude to pressing Apple Inc. for a payout. There have been seizures in some cities but no sign of action by national-level authorities.

Proview has a strong case under Chinese trademark law, but that could quickly change if Beijing decides to intervene to avoid disrupting iPad sales or exports from factories in southern China where the popular tablet computers are made, legal experts say.

“If this becomes political — and it’s very easy to see this becoming political — then I think Apple’s chances look pretty good,” said Stan Abrams, an American lawyer who teaches intellectual property law at Beijing’s Central University of Finance and Economics.

The dispute centers on whether Apple acquired the iPad name in China when it bought rights in various countries from a Proview affiliate in Taiwan in 2009 for 35,000 British pounds ($55,000).

Apple insists it did. But Proview, which registered the iPad trademark in China in 2001, won a ruling from a mainland Chinese court in December that it was not bound by that sale. Apple appealed. A hearing is scheduled for Feb. 29.

“My gut reaction is that many of these activities really could be seen as pre-settlement brinksmanship,” said David Wolf, a technology marketing consultant in Beijing. “Proview’s motive is money, not to shut down Apple.”

Shenzhen Proview Technology is a subsidiary of LCD screen maker Proview International Holdings Ltd., headquartered in Hong Kong.

Chinese news reports say Proview is deeply in debt, increasing the pressure for it to demand a substantial payout from Apple. Proview International, meanwhile, has been suspended from trading on the Hong Kong stock market since August 2010 and will be removed in June if it cannot show it has sufficient assets, business operations and working capital.

In a rapid-fire series of moves, Proview has filed a trademark-violation lawsuit that goes to court Wednesday in Shanghai.

That deadline is likely to prompt Apple to agree to a settlement within a few days to avoid the uncertainty of a court fight, said Kenny Wong, an intellectual-property lawyer with the firm Mayer Brown JSM in Hong Kong.

“I think Apple will be under immense pressure to have this settled as soon as possible,” he said. “Obviously, it depends on the amount the Shenzhen company is asking.”

In a statement, Apple said its deal with Proview covers the iPad trademark in 10 different countries, including China. “Proview refuses to honor their agreement with Apple in China and a Hong Kong court has sided with Apple in this matter,” Apple said.

Apple has pointed to a Hong Kong court ruling in July that said Proview and the Taiwan company both were “clearly under the control” of the same Taiwanese businessman, Yang Long-san, and refused to take steps required to transfer the name under the agreement.

The companies acted together “with the common intention of injuring Apple,” the judge said.

But that was not the final judgment in the case and might not be accepted by mainland courts, Wong said, because Hong Kong has a separate legal system even though it is a Chinese territory.

Apple, which is based in Cupertino, California, also ran into a trademark dispute before it launched the iPhone in 2007.

Cisco Systems Inc., the maker of networking hardware, had owned the trademark since 2000 and used it for a line of Internet-connected desk phones. After Cisco sued, the companies reached an undisclosed settlement and the phone launch went off as planned.

China is Apple’s fastest-growing market and the company already has bigger sales here than any other market except the United States. In the 12 months through September, sales totaled $12.5 billion in China and Hong Kong, nearly 12 percent of revenue.

“We’ve been very, very focused on China,” CEO Tim Cook told investors this week at a conference in San Francisco.

The dispute comes amid complaints that Beijing is failing to do enough to stamp out rampant unlicensed Chinese copying and exports of goods ranging from music and Hollywood movies to designer clothing to pharmaceuticals.

But unlike “trademark squatters” who register names of products already sold abroad and then demand foreign companies pay for the Chinese rights, Proview registered the iPad name long before Apple planned its tablet computer.

Proview says it plans to ask China’s customs agency to block imports and exports of iPads.

Such requests are routine under rules enacted to help stamp out rampant Chinese product piracy that has strained relations with the United States and other trading partners.

But enforcing this one could force regulators to confront the cost of disrupting Apple’s business. That might hurt China’s image as a high-tech manufacturing center at a time when foreign producers are being squeezed by rising costs.

All of Apple’s iPads are made in China by Foxconn Technologies Group, which employs more than 1 million people in sprawling factory complexes. Taiwan-based Foxconn previously did all its production in China but Brazil’s government says the company plans to open factories there to produce iPads and other products.

“The government cares about jobs. The government cares about industry. And who is Proview? Nobody cares about Proview,” Abrams said. “Apple is a big employer in this country. If it comes to politics, that is a decent argument.”

Proview has accused Apple of acting dishonestly when it bought rights to the iPad name from the Taiwan company. According to July’s Hong Kong court ruling, Apple set up a company in Britain to buy the iPad trademark from owners in various markets without revealing Apple was the purchaser.

Once the dispute arose, Proview demanded $10 million for the name in China, the court document said.

Apple has other legal options in China, such as asking regulators to cancel Proview’s trademark if it can be shown not to have been used for three years, said Wong. But he said that would take 12 to 18 months, extending the uncertainty for manufacturing and sales.