A few weeks ago I told you that Apple would lose the ownership rights over the iPhone trademark in Brazil and may have to withdraw the product from sale. Well, some of these things happened, the patent and trademark office in Brazil announced as a company called Gradiente owns the rights to the trademark, and Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), she will have to buy it from her if she wants to use it. Although Apple did not comment on the decision, the Brazilian authorities claim that an appeal will be filed against this decision.
Brazilian regulators have ruled that Apple does not have exclusive rights to use the "iPhone" trademark in the country. The decision is the result of a local company, Gradiente Eletronica, registering the name in 2000, seven years before the US firm. But the Institute of Industrial Property told the BBC it understood Apple was pursuing an appeal. The INPI added that its decision only applied to handsets, and that the California-based company continued to have exclusive rights to use the iPhone name elsewhere including on clothing, in software and across publications. INPI added that Apple had argued that it should have been given full rights since Gradiente had not released a product using the iPhone name until December 2012.
Apple still owns the iPhone trademark for everything else outside of mobile phones, but the company claims that Gradiente should not be entitled to the trademark, since between the year 2000, the date of application for the trademark ownership right, and the year 2012 launched any product under this brand on the market. Regardless of the motivations of those from Apple, for now the brand is owned by Gradiente, Apple can sell the iPhones, but if it is sued by the Brazilians, it will lose, it will have to pay compensations, remove the terminals from sale and more then to buy the brand.
Gradiente currently markets in Brazil a smartphone called iPhone Neo One that costs $300.
