I’m sure you’ve heard about the iPhone’s declining sales; which some people refer to as “Peak Apple”; in other words, this might be Apple’s prime and what may follow might be many long years of being behind in the smart-phone game and market as a whole. That bite in the Apple, might get deeper if care isn’t taken
Dead body discovered at Apple’s headquarters…
That aside, we also know Apple has a knack for defending their own; whether it be a name dispute, a design dispute, you name it; they’re quite ready to drag it out in court for as long as it takes to get them what they want – Ask Samsung; they’ve had a first hand experience. I’m sure many of you thought (ok, even I fell for this) that the iPhone name was iron clad to Apple. I regret to inform you (not really though) that a high court in China seems to disagree and they has come to a ruling that any a particular company could continue to use the iPhone name.
Now, don’t think that this was to spite Apple, I assure you it wasn’t and I’m sure after I explain, you’ll understand. Pay attention folks; we’re about to take history lessons.
Apple filed the iPhone patent in 2002 but it was not approved until 2013 under Class 9: Electrical and Scientific Apparatus.
With this in mind, in 2007 when the iPhone launched in the US, Xintong Tiandi – the Chinese company in question also filed a patent for the iPhone name; note that this was well before Apple even got theirs approved and when the iPhone was just launching in the US. They got their patent granted in 2010 under Class 18: Leather goods. See that the two patents do not clash and this Chinese company got theirs before even Apple; so if anyone’s patent should be revoked; I’m damn sure it’ll be Apple; but luckily it didn’t go that far. The Chinese company itself didn’t have any bad blood or grudges with Apple as they publicly announced on their website that
We will also make full achievement of the ‘iphone’ trademark, and work together [with Apple] to benefit more iphone consumers,
As translated by Quartz. You could read the full piece here; hope Google translate helps 😀
This really has not been Apple’s best year; hope this doesn’t deteriorate any further. Only time will tell though.
