14 DAY TRIAL // Apple has hundreds, maybe thousands of copycats across the world, as companies are trying to rip off their products with similar designs and even packaging in an aggressive attempt to attract more buyers.
Xiaomi is one of the bigger companies doing it, and although some of their products are clearly Apple knockoffs, Cupertino never seemed to have a problem with this. Until 2014, that is, when Xiaomi filed an application with the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) to register Mi Pad as an EU trademark.
The General Court, which is the European Union’s second-highest court, recently decided to reject Xiaomi’s application for the Mi Pad trademark because its name is way too similar to Apple’s iPad.
This decision was first announced in 2016 after Apple’s first complaint, with EUIPO itself admitting at that time that the similarities between iPad and Mi Pad designations could cause confusion among customers.
Design and software also similar
In its recent ruling, EU’s court explains that the way English-speaking consumers pronounce Mi Pad could indeed lead to confusion on the market.
“The dissimilarity between the signs at issue, resulting from the presence of the additional letter ‘m’ at the beginning of ‘Mi Pad,’ is not sufficient to offset the high degree of visual and phonetic similarity between the two signs,” the Court was quoted as saying by Reuters.
And yet, this is unlikely to be the end of the legal dispute, as Xiaomi can still appeal the decision and have the battle moved to the highest court in Europe, the Court of Justice of the European Union.
For what it’s worth, the name of Xiaomi’s device is not the only thing that’s way too similar with Apple’s iPad, but also the design and even the software running on the tablet. As you can see in the photo included in this article, the two devices look nearly identical, despite Xiaomi’s running Android.