It was the year 2002 when a Mexican businessman decided to found “iFone” – just like that -. A technology company that is dedicated to various aspects such as social networks, telemarketing, surveys, online sales, call center, etc. Basically they do a bit of everything.
It’s not small. It works with some of the best known brands in the world such as Banco Santander, KIA and even Microsoft. Most interesting of all is the name, which led to one of the most interesting legal battles in Apple’s history. Battle who also lost. Today we are going to tell you what happened between the iFone and the iPhone, why the Mexicans won and What could Cupertino have done to win?.
iFone vs iPhone: Here’s how you lose a lawsuit you won
When Apple launched the iPhone 3G in Mexico in 2008, everything seemed to be going well. Sales were good, people liked it, and they had chosen a good business partner — Telcel — for that. However, shortly after Apple’s trademark and patent department discovered iFone.
This is the company we were talking about earlier, and it decided to take legal action to the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property because it realized that such a similar name—and pronounced the same- could affect the sales and reputation of the newly launched iPhone. What they came to say, in short, is that people could get confused and they didn’t want that.
The Mexicans explained that they had registered their name with this organization for six years and that they had no intention of changing it or assigning it to Apple. It was then that Apple’s lawyers committed, in my opinion, the blunder that would lead them to lose this lawsuit and the following ones which are related to it. Maybe they didn’t quite believe in the “iFone” thing – the truth is, it looks funny -, and for that reason asked to see invoices from real customers using this name over the past three years.
They hoped it was someone who wanted attention but had never used that name. However, he did. They provided a few invoices on behalf of large corporations, and the matter that Apple had raised collapsed like a house of cards after a gust of wind. They had bet it all on one card—forgive the redundancy—and they had lost.
At the same time that Apple asked to see these invoices, it admitted de facto that it is in principle Mexicans who have had legitimate use of the mark from 2002 to date. They were right without realizing itFor. Although the regulator did. One of the most basic rules of the legal profession is to never agree with the other party. No matter how well you think it will work, it won’t.
Therefore, the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property came out in favor of iFone. Apple appealed to the Supreme Court of Justice, but again lost. In fact, after said decision, the Mexicans decided to take legal action to seek compensation for damageswhich they ended up winning, and the traders had to pay 76 million dollars, although those of Cupertino as such had to pay nothing.
It could have been approached differently
If I had been Apple’s lawyer in this case, my approach would have been different. As we said before, it all went too far when they asked for invoices to prove what they were saying. Firstly, because you give them, de facto, the reason, and secondly, because you give them the opportunity to show that they really have it.
Personally, I would have attacked for the priority of use that Apple would have over the name. It is true that they only arrived in Mexico in 2008, but it would be absurd to deny that those of Cupertino already had a certain global hegemony with the iPhone, the extent of which “iFone” did not even understand. How many people in Mexico would have thought of this telecommunications company if they had heard the phoneme “aifon”? Surely no one. Everyone would have understood that it was Apple’s smartphone.
That is to say, there is a collision of priorities here. Does the person who registers the trademark first or gets it adopted the fastest have more priority? One could argue that the latter as the value of what is recorded derives from who drives its mass adoption and not so much of who simply saves it at the start. There was also no anticipation that “iFone” would grow to roughly the same scale as Apple, and it’s clear that more people have heard of the “iFone” company because of this battle. legal only because of its capacity to develop on a global scale.
One would have to wonder if the value that Apple has given to the term registered is so great that it has made what was registered in the first moment have any kind of relevance. I think so. Today no one would know what the iPhone is or what “iFone” is if it hadn’t been for those of Cupertino, and therefore It would be reasonable for the Californian company to accept used this argument.
Either way, iFone continues to exist in Mexico and it doesn’t seem to have any plans to go anywhere else, so there seems to be little left for Apple to do in this case. They tried to pursue the lawsuit alleging the right to fame, but for the moment, it is only a question of reaching an agreement. Sometimes it’s not so important to be right or not to be right, but to know how to convince the judge. The “iFone” is here to stay.
In Applesphere | iOS 17 is now official: more personalization in your contacts and on the lock screen
In Applesphere | iPhone 15: Release date, price, models and everything we think we know about them
