Beijing: Amid a dwindling growth in sales and disruptions to some other services witnessed by Cupertino-based tech giant Apple’s flagship iPhone in China comes another shocker, this time over the name of its trademark ‘iPhone’.
Apple has lost a legal battle for control over the ‘iPhone’ trademark as it unable to prove that its iPhone was a “famous brand” in China. Apple’s case was against Xintong Tiandi Technology, a local Chinese company that sells mobile phone cases, wallets handbags and other leather products using the same name.
A Beijing court said Apple had failed to substantiate that iPhone was a famous brand in China before the local company applied for the trademark in 2007, the year the phone was released.
Apple first applied to trademark iPhone for computers and software in 2002. Xintong Tiandi applied to use the name a month before Apple’s phones went on sale in China in 2009 – but two years after the iPhone went on sale in much of the rest of the world.
Apple’s lawsuit was filed in 2012, and challenged the Chinese company’s use of the name on its range of leather products
(With agencies)
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