iVoice Ventures, an Indian company which owns the 'iFon' trademark, is challenging all of Apple’s iPhone marks and applications in the country.
iVoice Venture has filed four cases against granted and pending rights relating to the iPhone brand. The company had plans to make affordable smartphones under the 'iFon' brand name. Recently, iVoice filed a cancellation petition against a registered trademark for ‘iPhone’ with the Apple logo.
According to iVoice managing director, VP Balaji, "Apple's original opposition to 'iFon' trademark caused insurmountable challenges and irrevocable losses in ramping our business during 2008/2009. Given the rejuvenated Indian economy, we're on our way to revamp our business model and one key metric to regain investor confidence is to secure unencumbered rights to our 'iFon' intellectual property in India. As of February 2015, we've challenged all of Apple's registered/pending 'iPhone' trademarks before IPAB and TMR in India."
iVoice Operations Director, Venkateshwaran Vaiyapuri added, "We've filed one more rectification/cancellation petition against Apple's registered Trademark number 1634050 'iPhone with Apple Logo' to cement and consolidate our IPR battle. With this final petition, we've challenged Apple's attempt for potential proprietary claim for 'iPhone' in India and such would convey a strong message to Apple that we're very serious in protecting our intellectual property rights."
Apple has not commented on the ongoing dispute, but does not seem deterred by iVoice's moves. The company is planning to expand in India and open 500 retail stores this year. Apple has also offered a price drop for its latest iPhone 6 and 6 Plus devices in India on major e-commerce websites like Flipkart and Amazon. It has sold over 500,000 units of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus since its launch and plans to double these sales by September 2015.
Source: TOI