14 DAY TRIAL // Apple is one of the companies that are most often sent to court for a wide variety of things, including patent infringement, but what we have here is a pretty different claim that a Brazilian company just doesn’t want to give up on.
IGB Electronica, a company that owns a subsidiary called Gradiente, launched a series of Android smartphones in Brazil back in 2012 that was called IPHONE.
And while the name resemblance with Apple’s flagship product is more than obvious despite the capital letters, the Brazilian company believed it was the one holding the rights over the trademark, so it moved the dispute against Apple to court.
Surprisingly, the Brazilian court originally ruled in the favor of IGB Electronica, but a higher court then decided to allow both companies to use the iPhone branding in the country. While this was a little bit confusing for customers, IGB Electronica just didn’t want to give up on the fight, so in 2018 it revived the lawsuit again in an attempt to win exclusive rights over the trademark.
One more attempt
And yet, the judge didn’t change the original decision, letting both companies sell products called iPhone in the local market.
And now here’s IGB Electronica giving another attempt to this legal dispute, hoping that the Supreme Federal Court in Brazil would rule in its favor and forbid Apple to use the iPhone branding in the country.
While this is very unlikely to happen, there’s a good chance the whole thing would end up with a settlement, despite the fact that for now, Apple doesn’t really seem to be interested in such a way to end the legal battle.
Most likely, it’ll take many years until we get another court ruling, so for now, Apple can continue selling the iPhone in Brazil just like before.