Apple gets bitten in trademark court fight
Print Edition
APPLE Inc has lost its fight to gain ownership of the “iPhone” trademark on leather goods in China after a Beijing court ruled against the world’s biggest technology company in favor of a local firm.
The Beijing Higher People’s Court said Xintong Tiandi can continue to use “iPhone” on its leather goods, according to the Legal Daily, the official newspaper of China’s Justice Ministry.
The US tech firm has repeatedly found itself tangled in intellectual property disputes in China, where the sheer number of companies means trademarks are often taken by little-known players.
Some enterprising firms are quick to snap up trademarks that are known overseas but not registered locally, in the hope of a pay-off down the line.
In 2002, Apple applied for the “iPhone” trademark for computer hardware and software in China, but that was only approved in 2013.
Xintong Tiandi registered its trademark for leather goods in 2007, the first year Apple’s iPhone went on sale. The US firm has been disputing the Chinese firm’s intellectual property rights since 2012.
The Beijing court dismissed Apple’s appeal, saying the US firm could not prove the “iPhone” brand was well-known in China before 2009, when it first started selling the handsets on the Chinese mainland.
In 2012, Apple paid US$60 million to end a protracted legal dispute over the iPad trademark in China, which had hampered some sales and delayed the introduction of a new iPad in the country.
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