A company in China’s capital has the perfect leather case for your iPhone, a bag for your iPad, and a larger one for your MacBook. All bear the brand name “IPHONE”, plus “Handcrafted” or “Highest Quality” for reassurance.
And after a four-year legal tussle, a Beijing court has rejected a lawsuit from Apple, the iPhone maker, and decided that Xintong Tiandi Technology can keep churning out its IPHONE leather goods range, which stretches from passport covers and wallets to handbags and jewellery boxes.
The ruling in late March, only publicised recently, underscores the huge challenge foreign firms still face to defend intellectual property rights in the world’s second largest economy. Counterfeits remain rife across China and many local companies, such as Xintong, profit from having registered foreign trademarks before their actual owners.
“It’s a fair result, as it’s in accordance with the law,” Xintong Tiandi’s lawyer, Xiong Zhi, said yesterday. “Apple is a high-tech company; they respect knowledge,” he said. “They chose to sue us, but we are legal and the verdict is fair.”
Apple has yet to issue a statement, but Xintong is so delighted with the win that it has even reached out to the loser. After this “mighty success”, the company promised “to defend well the good image of the IPHONE brand, we’re willing at any time in the future to co-operate with the Apple company”.
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Its IPHONE leather range is only sold in China at present, and exports to the UK or elsewhere would depend on the laws and trademark rulings of those countries, Mr Xiong said.
Apple lost its case as it had failed to establish full ownership of its trademark in China. The company applied for the iPhone trademark in 2002, but only won approval in 2013 and just for “electrical and scientific apparatus”. In 2007, the year that Apple launched the actual product in the USA, Xintong applied for its use in the leather goods category, and was approved in 2010.
When Apple later challenged Xintong’s actions, a Chinese court confirmed that the trademark “iPhone” could be used on other products as Apple could not prove that “iPhone” was already a well-known trade name in China by the time that Xintong was granted its approval.