So glad you stated this. He could try and get the support of his government for extra weight.
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Apple Sued Over 'Animoji' Trademark
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Apple should have just used Applemoji. But I'm sure some Chinese patent/trademark troll already squatted on that name.
In any case…. Apple will end up paying because the lady obviously was granted the trademark first.
So Apple talks about giving back to society and is doing everything to destroy grammar and spelling 
Doesn't matter if it's registered with the USPTO or not. Under US law he owns the mark because he was first to use it, and still is using it.
While USPTO registration makes it easier to register overseas, use Federal courts, etc., filing is NOT necessary to claim a trademark in the US.
Thus even a trademark canceled over filing details can still be a valid US trademark.
There's no record that Apple has submitted their own application. Search TESS and see.
Not that it matters. It's the date of first use in commerce that matters most. He's got that.
Now what Apple could do is file everwhere else in the world, since outside of the US, most places are first to file instead of first to use.
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He may have first use for his own product, but that doesn't mean he can prevent anyone else from using the same name for a sufficiently different product. So as I've been saying, resolving this issue is not simply a matter of determining who used the product name first. It can get a whole lot more complicated than that.
Heh. Tell that to Apple, who sues anyone using an apple as a logo for recycling, a coffee shop, or other totally unrelated industries.
It's not about having the same exact product. Trademarks are about preventing source confusion, usually (but not always) in the same product area.
In this case, his trademark is for "Computer application software for mobile and cellular phones and handheld computers, namely, software for use in animating, processing, and transmitting images."
The product area can't get much closer than that.
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This lawsuit as others that have been discussed here is now in the hands of the legal system. Anyone want to take a stand as to the outcome?
Money talks
Those who think he and Apple will settle out of court are probably right. He'd have to be making tons of money from his app to do otherwise. Unless his lawyer has convinced him that he can make more from a jury award.
My question is: what did Apple's shell company(ies) offer him for the trademark previously? Couldn't have been very much.
No, not the "same exact product" (note, those are your words, not mine). The right answer is, similar enough to cause confusion over the source of the product. Now obviously that's going to be the kind of thing lawyers can argue about and courts get to decide, but this is why Cisco did not win an exclusive trademark to the iPhone name, even though they used it first. I don't have any idea who will prevail here but you really don't want to make trademarking sound simple and obvious, when it is neither.
Incidentally, corporations are often aggressive in defending their trademarks, in ways that may seem absurd to us non-trademark holders. They don't actually expect to win all those trademark infringement battles. They do it because a trademark that isn't defended can be eroded over time.
Source is what I said. You're the one who claimed it was about having a sufficiently different product.
Cisco didn't lose their trademark at all. There was no "win" or "loss" in a court. Instead, Apple made an out of court deal so they could share it.
Are all trademark rules written in stone? Nope. Examiners have leeway.
It'll be interesting to see what the USPTO does.
It is about either or both of having a differentiated product and/or one that has the potential to cause confusion about its source. You could look this up too, it's all out there.
I said: Cisco did not win exclusive use of the iPhone trademark. Not what you said. Presumably they failed to win exclusive use because their first use did not arguably give them that right. If they'd had any substantial hope of prevailing, they'd have pressed the matter in court.
Again, there was no fail. It never went to trial, nor did the USPTO take away Cisco's trademark.
Not necessarily.
Perhaps Apple/Jobs was able to offer something to get Cisco to share without a trial. Or came up with a threat that worked. Jobs liked using either/both a carrot and a stick
Again, there was no fail. It never went to trial, nor did the USPTO take away Cisco's trademark.
Not necessarily.
Perhaps Apple/Jobs was able to offer something to get Cisco to share without a trial. Or came up with a threat that worked. Jobs liked using either/both a carrot and a stick
They definitely failed to retain exclusive use of the trademark, which is what they sought in the lawsuit. My point here from the start is trademarks do not confer absolute rights to a name. This is true, and the Cisco situation only supplies a big piece of evidence to verify that point. What your point is here I am having difficultly determining.
As it pertains to trademark law, registered trademarks do confer an absolute right to the name in every category they file under.
EDIT:
Cisco still retains one of the IPHONE trademarks in the following class...
IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: computer hardware and software for providing integrated telephone communication with computerized global information networks. FIRST USE: 19970606. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19970606
Reg. 2293011 is live and still belongs to Cisco.
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Money talks
Those who think he and Apple will settle out of court are probably right. He'd have to be making tons of money from his app to do otherwise. Unless his lawyer has convinced him that he can make more from a jury award.
My question is: what did Apple's shell company(ies) offer him for the trademark previously? Couldn't have been very much.
Apple only have two options:
1) Change the product name like what they did with Force Touch to 3D Touch.
2) Settle out of court because Apple have zero chance in a David vs Goliath jury trial when it's clearly in the developer's favor.
As for what Apple shill companies tried to offer, I bet it was a low ball figure like how Apple treat their suppliers. I'm guessing around $30K. In the end, the developer will likely get $3+ million.
Yes, but the category definition is the key. They can't file under categories written so broadly that they cover any conceivable use. That is why Cisco retains rights to the trademark, but they could not prevent Apple from using the name iPhone for their product. You can't slap a name on a product and then own the rights to that name for every use. This is the principle that seems to be lost on so many who are posting here.
So it’s ok if apple uses the train wreck to their advantage but god forbid another tries it against Apple.
They can do anything they want that is legal, apparently.So it’s ok if apple uses the train wreck to their advantage but god forbid another tries it against Apple.
You keep claiming that Cisco couldn't keep their mark. There was no such legal decision, and the fact that in the end Cisco voluntarily made a deal (for compensation that was not made public) to let Apple share the mark, does not change that legal fact.
Heck, Apple had tried to get it for a long time.
Apple began to ask Cisco to sell the mark back in 2001. They kept trying over the years, even though Cisco continued to refuse.
By 2005 Apple was finally working on a phone and they began to get try harder. In 2006 Apple even used a shell company called Ocean Telecom to try filing for the iPhone trademark for a phone, as an attempted end run around Cisco. The application was not granted because of the Cisco mark.
Since Apple could not legally find a way to use the iPhone name, Jobs simply used it anyway. That was his style.
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Which amounted to... nothing. BTW, do you remember when Apple Corp sued Apple for trademark infringement after Apple starting selling music? If it seems like this kind of thing happens all the time, it's because it does.
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I can't keep claiming something I never claimed in the first place. They did keep it, as I have said repeatedly. What they could not easily do is prevent Apple from using it too.
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If it seems like this kind of thing happens all the time, it's because it does.
With Apple, it does indeed. Perhaps they are too lazy to come up with new names. After all they called the corporation "Apple". How original!
The last sentence is the claim I mean.
We know from Cisco's lawsuit that Apple had tried to file for a concurrent trademark via a shell entity and failed.
So I think it's clear that Cisco was holding all the cards and could've held onto the mark if they had wished. But they shared it with Apple for some deal that we know happened, but whose details are still secret.
Like I said, it could've been because of a nice payment, or it could've been blackmail by Jobs
Who knows? We likely won't find out for a decade or more until someone speaks up.