(AP)
Do you know about iFone? No, not an iPhone — the company iFone.
Well, thanks to a Mexican Supreme Court ruling, now both will have to coexist in technological harmony.
Last week, Mexico’s highest court upheld a ruling and said that iFone, a small IT company located in the country’s capital city, has the right to use the name now synonymous with the Apple brand.
The company first registered the name in 2003, four years before Apple introduced their own “iPhone.”
According to The Wall Street Journal, the lawsuit began after Apple tried to register the phone name in Mexico in 2009.
After being told by the Mexican Industrial Property Institute that the name was taken, Apple took legal action to revoke the brand’s name saying its license had expired.
However, the courts felt otherwise and in their most recent decision sided with iFone.
The lawyer for iFone, Eduardo Gallastegui, said the move will allow the company to sue for damages stemming from both Apple’s use of the name as well as three other Mexican mobile service providers.
Gallastegui was not clear as to how much the Mexican company is claiming, but pointed at some 40 percent of Apple sales in the country.
“Our main interest is to defend our brand,” Gallastegui said to BBCMundo.com.
“Apple started the controversy, their first step was to file a lawsuit, they didn’t previously approach the company.”
The ruling is just the most recent setback for Apple in Latin America.
Last month courts rejected a similar attempt by Apple to register the iPhone name in Brazil after it was shown the electronic maker IGB Electronica SA, also known as Gradiente, already owned the rights to it.
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