Indian firm challenges Apple over ‘iPhone’ brand

NEW DELHI: Apple is getting aggressive in India with the company reportedly setting a target to double iPhone sales and increasing focus on e-commerce. However, that’s not the only challenge the company is facing in one of the largest emerging smartphone markets.
An Indian company called iVoice Enterprises is intensifying its battle against the Cupertino giant over the claim to the ‘iPhone’ brand.It had plans to make affordable smartphones under the ‘iFon’ brandname.
The Erode-based company had filed a rectification petition with the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) in Chennai to remove Apple’s trademark on iPhone from the Indian Trademark Registry in October. Apple had first failed to submit its counter before the last date but later filed its counter statement and payed the late fee. The company challenged all of Apple’s registered or pending ‘iPhone’ trademarks before IPAB and TMR in India in February, demanding that Apple may not be allowed to use these in India.
Now, iVoice has issued a press statement informing that the company is expanding its IPR lawsuit, opposing Apple’s pending Trademark applications including one for ’iPhone with Apple Logo.’
According to iVoice managing director, VP Balaji, “Apple’s original opposition to ‘iFon’ trademark caused insurmountable challenges and irrevocable losses in ramping our business during 2008/2009. Given the rejuvenated Indian economy, we’re on our way to revamp our business model and one key metric to regain investor confidence is to secure unencumbered rights to our ‘iFon’ intellectual property in India. As of February 2015, we’ve challenged all of Apple’s registered/pending ‘iPhone’ trademarks before IPAB and TMR in India.”
iVoice Operations Director, Venkateshwaran Vaiyapuri added, “We’ve filed one more rectification/cancellation petition against Apple’s registered Trademark number 1634050 ‘iPhone with Apple Logo’ to cement and consolidate our IPR battle. With this final petition, we’ve challenged Apple’s attempt for potential proprietary claim for ‘iPhone’ in India and such would convey a strong message to Apple that we’re very serious in protecting our intellectual property rights.”
As per the company the IPAB/TMR is expected to conduct a hearing to review relevant merits and make a ruling in the coming months on the opposition and rectification cases.
S Suresh Kumar, managing partner of Unimarks Legal Solutions, an IPR law firm at Chennai, is representing iVoice Ventures Private Limited, in this matter against Apple.
It’s not the first time that Apple has encountered opposition from local players over the use of the iPhone brand name. In Brazil IGB Electronica, which has rights to use the iPhone name in Brazil had won the legal battle to gain control over the name. In China it had faced opposition from Shenzhen Proview Technology, which had claimed to own the iPad name and had to pay $60 million to settle the dispute.
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