Apple faces lawsuit over one of iPhone X’s features
21 Oct 2017
The iPhone X is not yet out Apple but one of its biggest features has attracted a suit. The suit brought by a developer claims copyright infringement, alleging that Apple stole the "Animoji" name from the developer's app of the same name.
"This is a textbook case of willful, deliberate trademark infringement," states the complaint, filed in federal court in San Francisco on Wednesday.
The Animoji app, which has been in App Store since 2014, allows people to send animated texts to friends via iMessage and other messaging apps. According to Emonster kk, the Japanese company behind the app, Apple was fully aware of its app and the name, which is trademarked.
Commentatorssay the lawsuit suggests an aggressive fight over the trademark may be in the offing.
According to Emonster kk, Apple began trying to buy its trademark in the summer of 2017. At the time, Animoji's creator Enrique Bonansea was approached by a series of companies with names like "The Emoji Law Group" who tried to buy the trademark and "threatened to file a cancellation proceeding if Bonansea did not sell the mark."
According to Bonansea, Apple was the party behind the groups and a day before Apple's iPhone X event, one of these groups filed a cancellation request with the US Patent Office.
Bonansea applied through his company to register the trademark in August 2014, which was granted in March 2015.
According to The Recorder this is a textbook case of willful, deliberate trademark infringement.
Fully aware of the Plaintiffs' ANIMOJI mark, Apple decided to take the name and try to show to the world that ''Animoji'' was original to Apple.
Apple was well aware that the plaintiffs had used the ANIMOJI mark to brand a messaging product available for download on Apple's own App Store. Rather Apple offered to buy Plaintiffs' mark but was rebuffed.
