“Apple has lost an injunction bid that would have allowed it to continue selling iPhone-branded products in Mexico,” Electronista reports.
“A court in Mexico City handed down a ruling last Thursday denying Apple’s injunction request on the grounds that the iPhone brand is too phonetically similar to iFone, a brand belonging to a Mexican company that registered its name four years prior to Apple’s filing for the iPhone brand mark,” Electronista reports. “The decision stems from a legal action that Apple initially filed in 2009 requesting that the company cease using the iFone brand in order to head off the possibility of consumer confusion.”
Electronista reports, “El Universal reports that the iFone trade name was registered in Mexico in 2003, some four years before Apple did so… iFone is a telecommunications company selling communications systems and services, including interfaces for IP-based telephone calls, virtual office services, and software for switching systems.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yea, okay. Couldn’t Apple simply buy iFone S.A. de C.V. with petty cash?
“iAnything” came from someone ripping off Apple to begin with so it is a bit ironic.
You didn’t read the article, did you? The Mexican company registered its name in 2003, some 4 years before Apple introduced the iPhone.
Maybe you forget it was Apple that came out with iMac in 1998.
You forget iPod in 2001, right?
I think Mike was referring to the face that iMac, iCal, iSight, iPod, iBook, iMovie, iDVD, iTunes, etc. all start with an ‘i’ and all predated both iPhone and iFone.
Yes, exactly.. Any name by any company that uses an “i” in it’s product name stole the idea from Apple which started naming products with an “i” back in 1998 with the original iMac.
So what? Apple did not patent iXXX, as they could have. I ran into this when I named my company The Hartford Communications Group. Any use of “The” and “Group” with Hartford is a trademark violation.
I was lucky. I telephoned The Hartford Group legal and told them what I was planning on naming my firm. They were very nice, and explained why I couldn’t. That was real cheap legal research, and saved me some future headache.
The Mexican ruling is a good one.
I didn’t say it was parented by Apple, i said it was ironic.
Patented.
So they were more polite to you than you were when you tried to pul a con by ripping off their name.
And most importantly: when Steve Jobs took over from Emilio, he named himself- iCEO…
The rest is history.
😊
And 15 years AFTER Apple started the “i” naming convention with the original iMac in 1998.
Steve81… you are cute with your little comments… you should do a little homework before you say i**** again.
Umm… Nope. I tried to get folks to refer to the Internet as the iNet (capitalization may or may not be accurate) back in the mid-1990s. Though it did popularize putting an “i” in front of things, Apple most certainly did not invent it.
Geez! Finally. Thanks. It’s a different country. It’s a different language. It’s not a fucking conspiracy! Now, let’s move on.
Um yes, they did. Provide link.
The mid-1990s… We used email, telnet, FTP, gopher, etc. That pesky WWW thing was only just starting to become popular. Anyways, I think it may have been on email or a private newsgroup. My point wasn’t that Apple wasn’t ripped offcon a specific case but rather that all use cases aren’t rip-offs.
Yup.
..except of course iOS, which has been a Cisco product since the early 90s at least.
If I am not mistaken, Cisco controlled “iPhone” too din’t they?
That’s exactly what they will do… Except they should have done it BEFORE they filed the injunction …. Now that they have lost it will cost twice as much…. Tha iFone guys are jumping with joy today… And Apple started it… Kind of a dumb move ….what bozos.
How did Apple start it exactly? All they did was try to sell iPhones in Mexico and this iFone company sued them. Apple today lost the injunction that would allow them to continue selling phones in Mexico regardless.
No read the article… apple sued them… Do people not read anymore… And When Apple lost the judge agreed with Apple the name caused confusion … But since iPhone was first Apple got what they asked for … In reverse.
Well your snarky not reading comment aside, I did misread that. However, as many have pointed out, this company stole Apples idea in the first place. It was Apple that started using the lower case “i” in front of their products back in 98′ with the first iMac. This use of the lower case “i” became synonymous with tech developed by Apple and many have tried to capitalize on this since. I don’t fault Apple for suing in this instance. This is a case of some one riding Apple’s coat tales to try and make them selves seem more legitimate.
Yeh. Real bozos. Thanks for your incredible business wisdom, Alcancun. Apple will no doubt look forward to you helping them out of the fog of idiocy they’re operating in. By the way, what successful giant corporation is it that you run (and, no doubt, without ever making even the tiniest mistake)?
The lawyers idiot… Like I said earlier… Do people not read anymore… And by the way … The large company I started and became CEO of allowed me to retire to the beach at 40 10 years after starting it…. And you?
If you care to share, what company? Just curious.
I would suggest the iAno.
iDunno what’s wrong with Apple.
My suggestion: The aye-yi-yiPhone!
hahaha — Train can record “50 Ways to Name Your iPhone”.
That is bullshit. Fuck Mexico!
Just be sure to use a condom.
Apple stArted it you bozo … Can’t you read the iFone guys were minding their own business and Apple sued…. Lost and the judge said your right it is confusing so take your product off the market using that name…. Apple lawyers: “Oops, we f$@ked up.
Now.. As too iMac and iPod names… Of course they were first…. But you can’t register iAnything and iEverything.
Now… I am American and love Apple but they screwed up this time… Can’t blame Mexico for this one…. Well I guess you can if your a racist with blinders on, and no concept of ANY legal system
+1
Thank you spark …. Sometimes people on this forum tend to blindly forget even Apple is not always right…
Agreed. Apple made a mistake here by going after them. They likely could have simply continued to coexist otherwise.
Some people here also need to get over their xenophobia.
Amen. People do tend to forget that it’s just a company it’s not their best friend. I wouldn’t defend Ford or General Mills why would I defend Apple? I love their stuff. Have used it forever. Make my living with it! Think they make the very best. But it’s basically it’s a thing. Not a person. And if these people think that Apple wouldn’t steamroll over them if they needed to, then they’re just simply not very bright. Buy their stuff. Invest in them. But take your wife and your kids out to dinner. Those are real people worth defending.
Exactly!!
Your post was very well thought out, and its certainly true that Apple screwed up. Just shoulda left it alone, and everything would have probably been fine for iFone and iPhone.
However, you screwed up and crossed the line by accusing anyone of being racist. Bad Form.
McDonald’s has trademarked an ungodly number of mcthings so it’s possible.
And even tried to prevent Scottish food outlets from have “Mc” in their trading names.
Unsurprisingly that case got thrown out.
+1
“Can’t blame Mexico for this one…. Well I guess you can if your a racist with blinders on, and no concept of ANY legal system”
Yeah, so how’s that legal system working out for good ol’ Mexico? They almost make our scam of a judicial system look decent. You don’t have to be a racist to recognize a corrupt to the core, shit hole country when you smell one.
The only difference between corruption in the US and Mexico is the cost… It just costs more in the US…if you don’t think even your presidential election is bought and paid for …. Take your head out of your butt and wait till next week.
Another difference is that in the U.S. the police and military aren’t a major factor in the corruption, including the murders of journalists, politicians, judges and others. I have no delusions about the purity of the U.S. in these regards, just as I have no doubts about the realities of the country of Mexico.
i love apple and fully agree with everything you say, with this one apple got shot in the foot. they should have left the mexican telco ifone alone
In this political sensitive climate, I doubt the name “i-Illegal_Immgrant_Phone” will sit well with Mexican customers.
Yeah, it’s because of political sensitivity that someone doesn’t want to be insulted.
Good thinking.
1.
And then there’s the fact that this ruling is in Mexico. Where the “illegal immigrants” would be non-Mexicans…. You know like people from the US….
It would probably be cheaper to buy the judge than the company.
only if Apple hires the Sinaloa cartel to pay this judge a “visit”! 😮
The iTelephono.
iChingada
¿Besas tu mama con esa boca?
¡Phone!
Simple solution for apple, don’t sell the iPhone in Mexico.
Mexico isn’t exactly a large marke to be in snyway. Apple shouldn’t rename the iPhone in Mexico just for them.
You should work for Microsoft.
He should he thinks like Balmer … All bravado and no business sense. Mexico is a Huge market for Apple .. Spanish is the 4th largest spoken language in the world… Here is the order and might be sobering to my fellow Americans
1. Chinese
2. Hindi
3. English
4. Spanish
I run my own award winning creative company and have global clients.
We are out performing our competitors in the creative sector month on month because we take risks.
I sacked 33% of my clients last year who were wrong for my company as they were buying on price and not value and we trebled our profit and improved our creative thinking.
I spend one day a week working on business strategy. So don’t talk to me about no business sense.
Apple not being in Mexico isn’t a deal breaker if you analyise the iPhone target market for the area.
Yeah, there’s only 115 million people there. Why would they want to sell there?
Seriously?
Yeah 115 million, soon coming to a neighborhood near you.
Hopefully they displace your racist idiot ass..
You are SUCH a hot tamale!
1
I have to wonder why a company in MEXICO would use an English name. Why not a Mexican name???
iFone is Mexican-based name.
From my understanding, a Mexican has to cross the border and get a low wage job in America before he/she can afford an iPhone anyway.
Seriously? There are some seriously large and successful Mexican corporations.
Stop believing all the stereotypes. Have you ever been to Mexico?
Pemex is one of the largest corporations in the world.
There is real business happening in Mexico, and there are wealthy people in Mexico that are not members of a drug cartel.
Stop watching so much television.
“Stop believing all the stereotypes. Have you ever been to Mexico?”
Let’s see, will it be Disney World or Mexico for vacation? Since the family is really into car-jackings, kidnappings, drug cartels, mass murders and beheadings, hell yeah baby, Meh-he-co here we come!
You friend are an untraveled redneck … Although I must apologize to all the traveled rednecks out there for grouping this clown with them…. I apologize.
Oh and speaking oh drug cartels … Who do you think they sell those drugs to… That’s right drug addicted America….and that’s where they buy their guns from too.,.guns are illegal in Mexico…no gun stores on every corner like in my country America.,.. So if you are really concerned about the violence in Mexico … Kick your drug habit America and stop selling guns….I love my country but as an American sometimes our hypocrisy is appalling.
Make a few select recreational drugs legal, and some of the problems go away.
Stop subsidizing (franken) corn and rice in the US and farmers in Mexico could start making money growing crops.
Most cartel connected firearms come from outside sources, project “gun runner” showed that the BATFE was trying to show a false trail to guns from the US. US officers died from this politically motivated BS. Violence in Mexico has nothing to do with American firearms (it is illegal to export without proper approval) guns don’t cause crime.
As for Apple – just rename the product in Mexico, or just buy the company, hostile takeovers are not as regulated in Mexico as in the US stock exchange. Done.
Mexican courts will always favor Mexican companies over US companies – it is the way it is.
You grow franken rice in the US? THAT is interesting (and bullshit). BY the way, what is wrong with transgenic corn and rice other than your severe case of ignorance?
First I listed (franken) corn as rice was second on the list with the descriptive in front of corn not behind both rice and corn.
GM Corn IS a problem in the US and I say this not because I think it is all that dangerous to humans (but I reserve that possibility) but because it is used in the courts by BigAG to crush small farming and competition.
For your information you just ran into someone that is far from ignorant of the implications and politics of Agriculture in the US and the relationship with Mexico and SA.
Subsidized farming in the US has crushed rice and corning farming in Mexico and countries like Haiti, tax dollars are used and abused by BigAG (corporate welfare) to drive prices down and this has turned into an Orwellian centralization of farm crops like rice and corn, forcing farmers in poor countries out of their traditional crops.
Get in some reading on this subject and you will not suffer so much from your own ignorance about the impact of mega-agraculture on geopolitics.
I just read a study yesterday, if the three states that have MJ legalization on the ballot next week succeed, it will suck BILLIONS, with a B from the “cartels” (bad descriptor really, thugs, gangs, mob are more accurate)
Think of the revenue and Jobs America could create without the immoral war on weed…
You are right however, that America has a lot to do with the landscape in Mexico today. Racist Americans don’t care/are oblivious, they only believe in American exceptionalism and infallibility.
Well time for Apple to use 5 minutes of its profit to buy the company outright and own up to it.
Reminds me of Job’s message Nov 19, 2009:
“Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal.”
Translation: the iBribes aren’t big enough anymore, they want an increase.
Just sell it with the name the “Apple iPhone”.
duh.
people don’t need to get all dorky.
Apple should just stop selling all products in Mexico and not let any Mexican products carry the “Made for i____” labels.
This is not a big deal. It might be a problem if they made telephones, and even then it’s a completely different spelling. What makes you think that Mexicans are so thick that they wouldn’t know the difference? There’s nothing to see here. APPL didn’t even have to bother with this. It’s a nothing issue.
“It’s a nothing issue”
If only Apple saw it your way before they filed suit in 2009…
That is what they will have to do. OR pull out of Mexico altogether.
Yea… That would be smart… Jesus some of you people are just dense… Pay the iFone people to use the name and move on….that is what Apple will do. End of story.
Really … does Apple really need to sell the iPhone (or any iAnything) in Mexico? Perhaps the “powers that be” in Mexico can come to a different point of view!
Need to? No.
Want to? Most definitely.
It’s a massive market.
I think they can just work this out with iFone and be done with. money or some other arrangement and I’m sure iFone would be happy.
This is what will happen. Apple will enter into some sort of financial agreement.
What’s funny is Apple opened up this can of worms.
Rather easy solution involving some cash on Apple’s part, then it’s business as usual.
I guess I read Spanish poorly, or at least differently. The Mexican article says Apple lost the injunction they sought against iFone from continuing to market their call center services under the iFone name. iFone has countersued, saying their brand is under attack by Apple, but a decision in the countersuit hasn’t been handed down yet.
A restaurant opened near by called iSushi.
This thing has gotten a little out of hand.
How about I cellphone apple should change it to that
Such racism overload in the comments. Mexico is of course a big market where 90% of the population owns some sort of mobile phone and 25% owns a full-featured smartphone. Apple can, of course, decide not to sell the iPhone in Mexico, but they’d be punishing themselves, not the country. Not only is their product replaceable by top-notch Android alternatives, but most potential Mexicans costumers are able to either go to the US and buy the device, or have somebody bring it to them. Apple had in did been using the “i” prefix for other products, but iFone never broke the law. iFone was sued first and having won the trial, deserves a compensation. Finally, I think some of the commenters would be sad to realize that if they moved to Mexico with the same income they get in the US, they wouldn’t even be upper-middle class. No need for the majority of Mexicans to migrate anywhere. Oh, I almost forget, a lot of tech-related Mexican companies use English names instead of Spanish (not “Mexican”) names because they can do bussiness globally and well… they like it that way, not to mention that there are far more bilingual Mexicans than there are Americans.
Sure, those are some good points, but in Spanish, iPhone is pronounced eye-phone. Nobody that I know calls it eee-phone, like the name of this other company is pronounced in Spanish. That said, I think this will get settled, and at this point it’s a money grab. Apple will reach some kind of agreement since, like you state, it is a massive market that Apple will not lose to something like this.
I agree with MDN. It’s a no-brainer to me that they should have bought it in the first place. Makes Apple® look bad going after this when they had it registered in 2003.
Of course, Apple® still had iThings back then, too, but it didn’t matter to them then, and couldn’t have won that anyway.
Roughly translated, ifone paid the best premium to the judge. Apple didn’t pay up. Ifone won lol that’s how it works. I could go outbid ifone and win the rights to their name also lol I’m from Mexico, I should know lol
Buy “iFone S.A. de C.V.” with petty cash and sell them “iFoney S.A. de C.V.” for 2¢.
Mexican jurisprudence is universally as respected as Mexican technology and Mexican pharmaceuticals
So in Mexico we will have AyPhone 5 or what?
Interesting though, if I’d name my product aiFoun and it was made by Äpl I could get away with it as those are the exact phononyms.
Big mistake from Apple Legal, I think.
They should have just bought them off. Why the hell do they think they’re entitled to a name already used by someone else?
This is what really get me. The iFone is pronounced in Spanish very differently then iPhone. In Mexico every body calls the iPhone “eye-phone”. The other brand is pronounce “eee-phone”. So you can see that somebody is after a money grab. Apple will have no other recourse than to pay a royalty to this company.
Of course. Mexicos law system is so corrupt that any injunction should be taken with as much salt as their control of their borders and their corruption and drug problems. If we allowed one iPhone sale for every border jumping Mexican it would take care of the problem!!!
Sorry. I trademarked “i”. ASndf while I was at it, I bought another vowel.
This is stupid… In spanish the i is pronounced like an e.
So phonetically in spanish that name would be like eFone… which is not the same iPhone in english
They just want some $$$
Get some good layers apple…
everybody calm down, it’s really no big deal if ever Mexico ban the
iPhone, just set up Apple Stores along the borders of Ca Az Tx and sell iPhones. those mexicans can buy and sell iPhones with profits when they bring it back to Mexico. think of how many Mexicans cross the border back and forth everyday.
LOL?