Shop E Store As we’ve reported here in the past, Apple is facing an interesting legal dispute in Brazil regarding the “iPhone” trademark. That’s because a local company called Gradiente claims to have patented the name long before Apple. As the case is still awaiting final judgment, Gradiente still believes he created the first iPhone.
Apple disputes iPhone trademark rights in Brazil
In an interview with a Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo (via mac magazine), Gradiente CEO Eugênio Staub spoke about how he feels about the dispute between his company and Apple. Staub complained that even Brazilians are accusing Gradiente of trying to take advantage of the situation to extract money from Apple, which he said is not true.
“People see this article and say, ‘Gradiente is a Brazilian company, so it must be a scam,'” the executive said.
Mr. Staub showed journalists an old cell phone called the Gradiente Iphone, which was released in Brazil in 2000, seven years before Apple’s iPhone. He also showed me some flyers that were being used to promote this phone at the time. “We sold 30,000 (units) in a few months,” Staub said.
However, due to a dispute between Gradiente and another Brazilian company, the “iPhone” trademark was only granted to Gradiente in 2008, a year after Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone. At the time, Gradiente didn’t sell mobile phones, but that all changed in 2012 when the Brazilian company introduced an Android smartphone called the “Gradiente Iphone.”
Unsurprisingly, Apple asked Brazilian regulators to invalidate the Gradiente trademark, ultimately resulting in it losing exclusive rights to the “iPhone” trademark in Brazil in 2013. Since then, the two companies have been fighting in court and are awaiting a final court ruling. supreme court. Still, Gradiente’s CEO says he has nothing against Apple’s iPhone.
“He (Steve Jobs) launched a sensational product. He’s a genius, not just for our generation, but for several generations. But that doesn’t mean our company has launched a similar product with the same name before. The facts don’t go away,” insists Gradiente’s CEO. “This country (Brazil) does not recognize many of its own innovations,” he added.
A final court date has not yet been announced.
Please also read
(Tag to translate)Brazil
