Every large company has a trademark name which usually cannot be used by any other firm or on any other product. For example, the term iPhone cannot be used by any other company, big or small, on their products. Having said that, this trademark iPhone name has been stolen; rather, the exclusivity of the name “iPhone” has been taken away from Apple in China. In a recent hearing, the Beijing Municipal People’s High Court has made a ruling which has stripped Apple of its trademark product name, iPhone.
Although Apple still has the trademark name of iPhone on their electronic goods and no other electronic goods can be named so, the government has allowed manufacturers of non‐ electronic goods such as leather goods and so on, to name their products iPhone if they wished to. For all who know about the matter, the name trademark issue has remained with Apple for a long time in China. They have fought against the government to keep their product name a trademark, but ultimately, was not able to do so in a complete manner.
More than 10 years back, in 2002, Apple had asked the Chinese government to provide them with the trademark for the Apple product name. This was actually five years before Apple had launched their products in the country. In 2002, one can say due to the unavailability of the product, China did not provide Apple with the grant. Meanwhile, in the year 2010, another company by the name of Xintong Tiandi Technology, a local company, requested for a grant and was immediately provided with one. Since then, Apple has had legal issues regarding the grant with the Chinese government. Moreover, it was not only China, but also India and Mexico, where Apple faced this naming problem.
