Brazil’s Android iPhone. Apple likely to lose trademark dispute over exclusive rights to the name in Brazil.
Before Steve Jobs came up with the iPhone, Brazilian company IGB Eletronica had already released theirs. Of course, everyone knows an iPhone is an Apple product. Even in Brazil, where IGB’s brand Gradiente has been selling its G-Gradiente iPhone since 2000.
And here’s the rub: Apple wants to trademark the word iPhone in Brazil so that an iPhone is an Apple, and not a Gradiente. Though any Brazilian within a mile of a TV set equates the iPhone to Apple, it is unlikely that Apple’s 2007 request with the Brazilian Institute for Industrial Property (INPI) to make iPhone an exclusive Apple trademark will pass muster.
On Feb. 5, INPI will publish its decision on the matter in the Industrial Property Magazine, which services as the official bulletin of record for trademark and patent protection.
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