Trademark Delays Canadian iPhone

[nfotxn]

A Toronto based VoIP company "Comwave" has filed a complaint with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) over the term iPhone.

Comwave Telecom Inc. trademarked 'iPhone' for their services in 2005 claiming to have been using the term iPhone since June 2004.

The kicker is that Apple filed their trademark for October 2004. A convenient three month difference. The problem is that everyone suspected Apple to make a phone enabled version of iPod called iPhone as early as 2002. None of the archived results refer to Comwave or their products. So how do we know they existed?

Better yet there are fairly large forum discussions about the legal murkiness of the iPhone trademark relating to Apple's rumoured device back in 2002. Did Comwave read those? If I'm not mistaken part of filing a trademark is to take due diligence to find out about the term before you make it your own.

This is pretty clearly just a cash grab by a small potatoes Canadian VoIP company. Of course the company knew there was a distinct chance that Apple would come to the Canadian market with their telephone iPod, some sort of "iPhone". And grabbed the trademark after a year Apple had it, claimed 3 months prior art and sat on it until the device started to make it's way here.

I hope Comwave spends a lot of money on lawyers and loses.

Comments

[five0xpres.livejournal.com]

It would be better for Comwave to enter into some kind of agreement with Apple and be happy with whatever they could get out of the deal, because Apple has proven they have some pretty deep pockets and a talented legal team to help acheive their goals, whatever those goals might be.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

That's what Apple did with Cisco. In the article the statement from Comwave seems to be that they've already determined that there is no way they can co-exist in the market with the same trademark.

Given the chronology of their patent application and pre-determination that they can't come to an agreement only lends more suspicion that they are trademark squatters.

[jacked01.livejournal.com]

you dont want the phone anyway if your in Canada, just wait a little while longer and the big three are coming out with their own versions, Verizon is already promoting theirs.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Who? ATT, Spring and Verizon? Because they don't exist here. Also the ATT iPhone competitor is a variation of the LG Prada which is not really that great.

[barengeist.livejournal.com]

Actually I hope Comwave takes them down if they did have prior use of the term. We went through this with our business. A company with a similar name threatened bitched and finally made a federal case out of it by suing us for violating their trademark. They are a much bigger than we are with in house counsel and all that good crap. We were eventually able to demonstrate that we had prior use of our name by years. It honestly doesn't matter if it is prior use by days. Prior use is prior use. A trademark can also be revoked in this sort of case. We decided to not be that big of a prick over the case, even though we were well within our rights to do so. This same outfit who sued us has also sued Google (and lost) over their name in the use of adwords. They are planning an appeal. I have jokingly talked to Chuck about selling our business name to Google so Google can then bend them over and spank them by having their trademark revoked.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

I'm all for the little guy. But just looking around very briefly you can sorta see that their trademark application came after Apple's and they claimed prior use exactly three months before them. I mean really. Again I'm all for supporting the little guy but if it can be proven these guys aren't trademark squatters I'll be very surprised.

[velnich.livejournal.com]

I have a little less sympathy for Apple after they announced the iPhone would be available in Canada through Rogers alone. Though that could be more our fault for only have one real gsm cell phone network provider. Still, they're going to price gouge the hell out of anyone who will want one.

I'll settle for an iTouch and a separate decent phone.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

I've heard this conjecture from a lot of people. But I don't think that the price gouging will continue, as we already pay too much for data in Canada as it is. I have a feeling a large part of the delay, other than trademark issues, is that Apple knows quite well the iPhone user experience SUCKS without unlimited data. Rogers is probably hard-balling them on that or some other issue.

If anything blame Rogers.

[velnich.livejournal.com]

I guess we'll have to wait and see what Rogers can come up with in the way of an unlimited data plan. I can't see it being cheap if they make one for the iPhone and that's if they even try to make one. I have no problem blaming Rogers, but I still want to put some blame on Apple for going exclusively through them as childish as that may be.

[heypyro.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on the cash grab guess. It just sounds so opportunistic. A company like Apple is just going to throw them a few bucks and be done with it. Heck, Apple can afford it. I just don't like the precedence it sets. It is also bastardly of this VoIP to delay the release even more because they see the opportunity.