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Meanwhile, there is still some advertisement here in Brazil about the...

...Wait for it...

...hiPhone!!!!!!!

I really wish Apple could prevent people from using names similar to iPhone too.
 
Good... Finally some reason in this case. I don't know what Brazilian law is like, but in the USA, if you fail to use and defend a trademark, you lose it.

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?
 
good guy judge

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.

----------

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?

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.
 
If this article is correct as to the judge's reasoning, then trademark law is very different in Brazil then in the United States.
 
....
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?

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 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.
 
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.
Well, according to this, they've trademarked quite a few words that really seem pretty popular with other people. Like:

New York
Numbers
Textile
Safari
Sand
Bonjour

I hope no one gets confused.
 
Well, according to this, they've trademarked quite a few words that really seem pretty popular with other people. Like:

New York
Numbers
Textile
Safari
Sand
Bonjour

I hope no one gets confused.

How long have they had these trademarked? I'm just curious if there is some arbitrary statute of limitations on how long you can own a trademark before using it or else you lose it.
 
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.

----------



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.

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.
 
Surely the fact they trademarked name 7 years before the iphone is case closed? Or is this apple waving some cash under someones nose?
 
Well done!!!! Gradiente is well known to be a company that is dead and broken and these losers tried to get some money from Apple.
 
Back in 1998, that actually meant something. The character has since lost its meaning and now implies "Apple product." Think about it; the iPod didn't go online, iBooks are downloaded, iMovie is a desktop app, etc.

"i" in Apple products just stood for "I", as in the pronoun. It meant/means that it's personal.
 
Back in 1998, that actually meant something. The character has since lost its meaning and now implies "Apple product." Think about it; the iPod didn't go online, iBooks are downloaded, iMovie is a desktop app, etc.

And before that it meant Intel processor.

i386
i486
i586
i686
 
According to Wikipedia, even in the States, (3) companies used the iPhone name before Apple started using it:

Infogear
Linksys
Cisco

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisco_iphone

Yup we used those early VoIP phones back around 1998-2000 at my old job. Wonder what
Apple and Cisco settled their dispute on February 20, 2007. Both companies will be allowed to use the "iPhone" name in exchange for "exploring interoperability" between Apple's products and Cisco's services and other unspecified terms.[8]
means.
 
How long have they had these trademarked? I'm just curious if there is some arbitrary statute of limitations on how long you can own a trademark before using it or else you lose it.

No clue. Probably quite close to the original release of the actual products.
 
Well, according to this, they've trademarked quite a few words that really seem pretty popular with other people.

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.

"i" in Apple products just stood for "I", as in the pronoun. It meant/means that it's personal.

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.)

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.

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.
 
How long have they had these trademarked? I'm just curious if there is some arbitrary statute of limitations on how long you can own a trademark before using it or else you lose 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.)
 
If Samsung did the exact thing same to Apple everybody here would be crying about how the judge was paid off.
 
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.)

Thanks for the info. No wonder Apple won the case if Brazilian laws are similar.
 
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