Apple Sued Over 'Animoji' Trademark

[thebluepotato]

Brand reputation : that is apples problem,
Not the legal fight. If what you said were to play out and the guy was right and apple defeated him by destroying him financially..... the press would have a field day.

Apple also could have sent the Swiss railway bankrupt through an intensive battle, they killed it ASAP for brand reputation purposes.

Apple is going to settle very fast and the guy is going to make so much more than offered initially....if it's about the money.

I'm cackling, "bankrupting the Swiss Railway" . The Swiss Railway made approximately three times Amtrak's revenue in 2013 (according to Wikipedia). Moreover, it's state-owned so you'd end up in a diplomatic scandal with a country which adores Apple products... Although bankrupting would not have happened by a long shot, I agree that it was mostly related to brand reputation.

Swiss chauvinism aside, here a few comments. On "small guy v Big Corp", although I understand the feeling of injustice, many American scholars in economic analysis would tell you that having one big company using the name "Animoji" is more efficient than a small business hogging it forever with a dead app virtually used by no one.

Regarding the name issue, from what I know about UCC art. 9 (not the same issue at all, but also with filings), I'd not be surprised if the court took an extremely formalistic approach and require the name to be exact. If the name isn't exactly correct, your filing would be void under UCC 9, so I'd wager that it could be the same for a patent.

I'm pretty sure Apple's lawyers aren't entirely incompetent and therefore knew all that from the beginning and factored in that developers refusal. They'll very probably settle this, he'll be paid and Apple will gladly use the Animoji name.

 

[Veinticinco]

Reminiscent of the school playground bully demanding the little kid hand over their lunch or else. The 'else' being the implicit punch and taking said lunch anyway.

We haven't progressed much in adulthood sadly.

 

[obiwan]

Well this stinks of...

 

[mixel]

I don't think derivative words like this should be trade-markable. Apple shouldn't ever be able to tm it and nor should this guy have ever been able to. Animoji is such an obvious name that it should default be the standard name for animated emoji - I've used it before this ever came up, and I've seen others do it.. Animgif, animoji, etc..

If Apple are going about it from that angle I can understand them just ignoring it and using it anyway - If they're trying to tm it for their own use then I think that's stupid.

 

[shplock]

Apple probably knows that they have the upper hand on the legal issue or they would have chosen a different name, but as you say it won’t look good if they don’t settle with him before the product goes live.

Or Apple just think they can bully someone into letting them have their way regardless of the law

 

[shplock]

Who gets a call from Apple and rejects an offer from them to buy something? Seriously? You’re in la la land if you think you’re going to make more money than just getting outright paid by Apple.

We don't know how much Apple offered him. Apple are not rich by giving away money.
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Apple fights in court until the guy goes bankrupt. And with 18k downloads, that probably wouldn’t take too long.

Or other people step in and help the guy...or a truck load of lawyers help for free to make a name for themselves or because they are sure they will win. Or maybe a competitor will pay the lawyers fees etc

 

[mi7chy]

Surprised Apple didn't pull a f.lux by yanking the app from the App Store then integrating the stolen idea into iOS.

On the other hand, the developer could ask for over 2.5 billion since this is more flagrant than rectangle with rounded corners.

 

[AlexisV]

Sounds like he didn't register the name properly anyway. It's too late if he's registered it with the wrong company name, it'll just get cancelled.

 

[0110076]

So far, this only tells one side of the story.

I’d really like to hear what Apple has to say about it.

 

[gnipgnop]

Sounds like he made a technical mistake on the legal side of his trademark registration. Tough break. Probably wasn't aware of that when he turned down the buy offer.

 

[SuprUsrStan]

should have sold to apple when they had the chance.

edit: they put probably still can.

 

[shadowmatt]

So far, this only tells one side of the story.

I’d really like to hear what Apple has to say about it.

What is there to say. There is already an app / trademark / name that is used by a different company to send animated emojis / messages.

Thats it, Apple needs to use a different name. The other one has already been used.

To get lawyers involved to try to bully the developer is classic Apple. Steal what you cant buy.

 

[iMi]

He just want easy money. 18.000 download is nothing.

By your logic, I should be allowed to steal a few hundred dollars from you and not be held accountable. Only if the amount I am stealing is high enough, then I get to suffer consequences?

He owns the trademark. Why should Apple, or anyone else, take it from him?

 

[samcraig]

We've seen this before. They've bullied others before. Apple will wind up cutting a check.

 

[calzon65]

With Apple's obsessive/insane focus on pouring out thousands of emojis instead of the needed focus on serious bug fixes, I wonder if they will now pay the price as we witness an onslaught of Emoji copyright infringement cases. This will be interesting to watch and is probably just the start

 

[littlecrossrace]

Who gets a call from Apple and rejects an offer from them to buy something? Seriously? You’re in la la land if you think you’re going to make more money than just getting outright paid by Apple.

Which is probably why Apple went ahead and used to name anyway.

 

[Macalway]

How is it one-sided? The article makes it clear that the guy was using the name first, had a business using the name, and even an iOS app using the name.

Unless you mean the article is anti-Apple?

No you misinterpreted. It's one sided as we don't hear Apple laughing hysterically at the sad attempt to find justice.

 

[halluxsinister]

Anyone remember when we used a collection of roughly two dozen of what are called, "glyphs" to encode sounds representing ideas, instead of stupid little pictograms? Also known as "letters"?

I can't wait for "emojis" or "emoticons" or whatever they're calling them next... Animacis or whatever? to DIE, and we can all go back to the simple dignity of responding to something funny with "LOL". At least that was language.

The way things seem to be heading, we're going to end up seeing these stupid things pop up on menus, in advertising, etc., and I believe this degrades language and is a giant step backwards, one which I personally refuse to take.

 

[maramok]

The lawsuit and settlement will likely be the most profitable endeavor this developer will ever accomplish. Good for him.

 

[M.PaulCezanne]

Pay your lawyer a little up front to prevent paying a lot later. Good luck Mr. Bonansea.

 

[AppleFanBoyCAN]

The biggest question I have is why Apple doesn’t have smiley faces for the animoji but has a whole host of other creatures from the emoji set.

I know. Weird, given that no one uses these animals whereas a custom smiley face would have been the most useful/popular by far.

iOS 12 announcement Jun18: "We are so excited to introduce 10 new Animojis! They are phenomenal! We think you are going to love them!" (painful 10 mins demo going through every single one of them)

 

[SoN1NjA]

The worst thing in the world that can happen to you if you're an engineer that has given his life to something is for someone to rip it off and put their name to it.

 

[luisfrocha]

He just want easy money. 18.000 download is nothing.

And based on the evindence we see in this article (I’m not saying there’s more that we haven’t seen), then he deserves that money. Otherwise, what’s the use of registering a trademark if anyone can just use it without consequences?

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

What a mess and your think Qualcomm was the guilty one. If this gets out of hand, it could delay the X even longer if Apple has to pull the feature.

Not at all. This in no way will delay the release of the X. You think that you're being silly and don't know how business works.

 

[icehockey77]

Question for Apple is Brand reputation. They can probably win this, but geez the media can make them look like turds. I think apple values its magical clean image...

99% of the world will not care about this case in the slightest.