A Brazilian company called Gradiente has managed to get a
Brazilian trade mark registration for the mark iPhone for cell
phones. To make matters worse for Apple, Gradiente is selling
an Android- powered iPhone cell phone in Brazil - Android is the
operating system of Apple's fierce competitor, Google, and
there has, of course, been well-publicised 'proxy patent
litigation' between Apple and Samsung, another Android
user. The press statement issued by the Brazilian company
suggests that it anticipates doing a deal with Apple, which will no
doubt involve Apple buying the Brazilian trade mark registration
for big bucks.
Apple suffered a similar set-back a few years ago, when it started
selling iPad in China without a trade mark registration. What
happened there was that, as part of its worldwide clearance
exercise, Apple bought certain registrations for the mark iPad from
a Taiwanese company. Apple mistakenly believed that, amongst these
registrations, was a
