The chamber on patent disputes of Rospatent has registered in Russia trademark for iWatch by Apple. About it reports a site of Federal Institute of industrial property. The registration process took California giant almost three years.
The first attempt to register an Apple iWatch taken on 3 June 2013. The application was filed in two classes of the International classification of goods and services (ICGS) — 9th (computers, peripherals for them, etc.) and 14th (hours, etc.). Soon the Federal service for intellectual property has denied Apple the right to trademark. Its decision the Supervisory authority motivated by the fact that the term iWatch, “similar to the point of confusion” in the trademark, including trademark I’m Watch, the time fixed for the holding of Swatch AG.
This year the experts of the Institute reviewed the decision. As stated in the opinion, the court sided with Apple because of the special role of the letter i in the product name of the company. According to patent examiners, this letter change the semantics of the word to which it is attached, and it consumers identify Apple products.
Apple first registered the iWatch trademark in Jamaica on 3 December 2012. In several countries (USA, Italy, Switzerland, Australia, etc.) different companies have already managed to register their trademarks, including the verbal element of the iWatch in a variety of writing.
If Apple decided to leave for “smart” hours iWatch name, she would have to negotiate with the trademark owners. Similar precedents already were. Apple has repurchased $60 million for global rights to the name iPad with Chinese company Proview Technology, which registered the trademark iPad in China in 2001. In the case for hours to buy the rights would have had many companies in many countries. For Apple there was a question on expediency: to spend millions of dollars to purchase a iWatch or brand name your watch otherwise.
In the end, the watch called Apple Watch. March 10, 2015 Rospatent has registered the application for registration of two trademarks: the name Apple Watch and logo watches — the Watch inscription to the right of the image of the bitten Apple.
