Apple loses ‘iPhone’ trademark in Brazil
06 Feb 2013
Apple could soon lose the 'iPhone' trademark in Brazil after the Brazilian intellectual property regulator granted the trademark to a local company, Gradiente Eletronica SA that registered it first.
In 2000, Brazilian consumer electronics maker Gradiente Eletronica SA, now known as IGB Eletrônica SA after being restructured, registered the rights to the "iphone" brand name in Brazil.
The company filed the IPHONE trademark registration with The Brazilian Institute for Industrial Property (INPI), seven years before Apple launched its now popular smartphone.
But INPI gave it the rights to the name only in 2008, and the company has been selling Android-based smartphones under the iPhone brand name since December 2012.
Apple had applied for the iPhone trademark in Brazil in 2006, but early this week INPI rejected it since IGB had applied for the same trademark six years earlier in 2000.
It appears that the California-based technology giant will have to settle this trademark dispute the way it did in China last year.
