iFone is a Mexican telecoms company that has been serving the Mexican resident since 2003, Apple released its first iPhone in 2007 and its trademark registered. Cupertino based Apple in 2009 filed a lawsuit against iFone for the trade name, and iFone immediately countersued. Apple known to fight against any company running a name related to its company or product should have hit a deal with Mexican iFone, but the iPhone company went ahead filing a case. Many a time, Apple had been observed to buy off every website related to its product name, what Apple is trying to do is to be so monopolistic about all its deals.
A Mexican City court gave its verdict last week when Apple lost the injunction. The jury claimed that the Apple product iFone is too phonetically similar to the carrier iFone. The implication is that Apple will no more be allowed to sell any product under the name iPhone in Mexico.
The case was a clear and glaring picture, showing that it is impossible for Apple to win this kind of case. iFone has been existing since 2003, four years before Apple released the first iPhone ever. It look like a dream for Apple, as it has claimed that it has already registered the name iPad over nine years in Asia during a legal battle with Proview. Apple could have just hit a deal with iFone instead of filing a legal suite to claim monopoly.
It was so unfortunate that Apple lost the authority to use the name iPhone in Mexico, and not that alone, iFone also went further to sue Apple for damages which may result Apple remitting 40% of its total iPhone sales in Mexico into iFone Telecoms. What a pity?
The report we got from Electronista says that the two giant Mexican mobile carriers are scheduled to start selling the iPhone 5 yesterday. Till now, we are still waiting the court ruling maybe the iPhone 5 sales in Mexico will be delayed or totally ban. A solution for Apple is to change the name of the product and get into a fresh deal with iFone. As it is known for Apple never to come low at any cost, the Cupertino giant will rather give up the sales of the iPhone in Mexico rather than changing its product name for a single market.
This year August was also the final court judgement over the Apple-Samsung patent infringmentation case as Apple won the lawsuit over Samsung when the court confirmed that some Samsung product has stolen from Apple’s iPhone and iPad design. Samsung was asked to pay $1.05 billion damages to the Tim Cook led company, $1.45 billion lesser than the $2.5 billion the iPhone maker had demanded.
Also when the iPhone 5 was freshly announced, Samsung added it to the list of devices it will battle for patent copycatting.
What I critically observed is that, Apple is always fighting to get monopoly of its products and brands, competitors don’t deliberately sue Apple until Apple takes the first leap against them on court case, now, what you will see is more company sending Apple to judiciary because of its deeds and action on any occurrence that involves its branding.
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