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Judge in Brazilian 'iPhone' Trademark Lawsuit Rules in Apple's Favor
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Well, I'm Brazilian and i DO know something about our laws.
The Company (here we call it "Gradiente", it used to be a really big electronics company) DID registered the name "iPhone" 7 years BEFORE apple launched the iPhone in the US and maybe 9 years before it was launched in Brazil , so it's pretty clear that they indeed have a case (remember that when apple launched the original iPhone they actually bought the name from a British company or something).
That been sad it's also a fact that they saw a HUGE opportunity to make some cash from apple's deep pockets and that's the only reason they launched the crappiest iPhone ever(it's crap even from Android standards)
so,
1)they registered the name many years before anyone started talking about apple releasing a phone
2)they are a electronics company.They actually used to have pretty good phones back in the day (nokia technology when nokia tech meant something)
I don't see a way where apple DOESN'T pay a lot to get exclusive rights to the name, the fact that today both companies are allowed to used it is meaningless, or any one can imagine apple sharing a name?
Or just intelligent. You don't get to cry foul when you don't use your patent until after someone else gets popular with it.
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I'm a little odd here in that I'm not a rabid Apple fanboy, but even I can see Apple clearly deserved to win this case. They may have patented the name nearly a decade before Apple started using it, but they never used it during that time.
I'm not sure I understand ... if Apple can now use iPhone legally (but not exclusively) in Brazil, why would they need to pay *alot* to get exclusivity?
Wouldn't it be more likely that Apple would offer them (IGB) less now?
.
Personally I think this is the right call; iSomething naming was made popular by Apple's iMacs, triggering a huge upsurge in, usually cheap and tacky, iNaming for all sorts of things.
I'd also be willing to bet this company only registered the trademark in the first place either because a) they could cash in later if Apple did release an iPhone or b) they were too lazy to come up with their own name, as a surprising number of products fall into the latter category; iMacs made iProducts cool, so that's what loads of companies have done, just like putting numbers in names in place of actual words.
I'd also be willing to bet this company only registered the trademark in the first place either because a) they could cash in later if Apple did release an iPhone or b) they were too lazy to come up with their own name, as a surprising number of products fall into the latter category; iMacs made iProducts cool, so that's what loads of companies have done, just like putting numbers in names in place of actual words.
I wonder if Apple has any names trademarked that they haven't used yet and also how long the had iPhone, iPad, iPod, before the product was actually released. Just curious.
First of all...this is not a patent dispute. This is a trademark dispute.
Having said that... you seem to think that it's "crying foul" when you have a patent, don't use it until someone else releases a popular product with that feature, and then file suit to protect your IP. How is this actually crying foul?
You realize that Apple files for and receives approval of many many patents that never make it into a product right? What would happen if some other phone or PC manufacturer were to release a product that contains a feature that Apple had patented 10 years ago? If Apple were to sue (even though they NEVER actually implemented the feature in a commercial product), would you consider that Apple is "crying foul"? I would guess no... you'd defend Apple.
Please apply your "standards" consistently.
I think you meant to say "boatloads".
No just a shipload (equal to many boatloads). Apple is more of a minimalist.
Surely the fact they trademarked name 7 years before the iphone is case closed? Or is this apple waving some cash under someones nose?
"i" in Apple products just stood for "I", as in the pronoun. It meant/means that it's personal.
Yup we used those early VoIP phones back around 1998-2000 at my old job. Wonder what
means.
No clue. Probably quite close to the original release of the actual products.
Apple never seems to update that list. For example, they still claim that "Multi-Touch" is a trademark, even though it was denied and abandoned back in 2011.
According to the ad agency who came up with "iMac", they presented the "i" to Jobs as being able to stand for: Internet, Imagination, or Individual.
(Jobs wanted to call it the "MacMan", a not very innovative take-off on the Sony Walkman and/or PacMan game.)
Apple was actually late to the "i" naming game. It was quite popular during the 1990s to use it for Internet or Interactive. It was just falling out of favor when Apple started using it.
In the US, you have to use your trademark on an actual product or service within six months, otherwise you lose the pending registration.
However, you can also file extensions, which can stretch the initial delay to about three years. (!)
(Extensions are a favorite ploy of trademark squatters. They hope that a company won't want to wait that long, and will instead pay them off earlier.)
