Remember the other day when I said if you’re reading software patent articles on tech news sites not written by Nilay Patel, you were doing it wrong? Let’s add “trademarks” to his beat:
News broke all over the web today that Apple had lost a “major” trademark case against a company called iFone that might prevent it from selling the iPhone in Mexico. The story seemed almost too good to be true, especially since Apple was the first to bring the suit against iFone, a small call center company that filed for its mark in 2003, four years before the iPhone came out. The tech media, in love with the idea that Apple’s litigious ways had backfired, took the story and ran with it.
Unfortunately, it just isn’t accurate — while Apple did lose an appeal over the iFone trademark in Mexico, it has no bearing on its ability to sell the iPhone in that country.
Read the rest of iPhone, iFone, and Apple’s Mexican trademark standoff: what’s really going on at The Verge. Hint: nothing important.