In conjunction with our last class discussion I found this article to be extremely interesting.
http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/06/apple-will-reportedly-lose-the-iphone-trademark-in-brazil/
The article explains how apple will not have iPhone trademarked in Brazil because a Brazilian company trademarked it back in 2000. The decision is made on the 13th of this month but Apple has the ability to challenge it. I was wondering if it is worth Apples time and money to challenge this Brazilian company and fight or the trademark or if it would be easier for them to just pay the $60 million the company is asking for it and buy the trademark. I think what IGB is doing to apple is brilliant. They know the smartphone market in Brazil is booming and they are ready to capitalize on it without putting in much effort. The last sentence of this article makes me think of trademark legitimacies and opportunities. "But it does make you wonder if we’ll see more trademark claims pop out of the woodwork in other key international markets" I feel like some international business man could easily make a lucrative business out of just buying and maintaining a bunch of trademarks of names that could potentially make its way to their international market. But is this the right thing to do? or is everything fair game when dealing with the corporate giants?
Cory, the questions you pose at the end get at the core of what patent wars are all about. I would say that when working within the legal system, everything is fair game. The question you have to ask yourself is: how can you know exactly if a tech giant will try to enter a certain foreign market. It seems like it could be risky to simply put time, energy, and money into buying trademarks in foreign countries just on a hunch.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great article Cory. I agree with Aviv that the patent war is a very muddled field and that just buying trademarks is risky.
ReplyDeleteHot new post Cory, love it. Slightly off topic, but McDonald's international expansion seems the opposite: changing the name to Macca's instead of McDonald's.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting... I wonder whether the Brazilian company originally derived the idea from Apple years and years ago. Because in looking at websites, there are people who claim all the domains they can that seem like people would use them. Then when a company really gets that name, they hope to sell the domain for big bucks. In reality this is not allowed under the law...
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