On Monday, Indian firm iVoice Enterprise released a statement on its efforts to take down the iPhone in India. "Apple's original opposition to 'iFon' trademark caused insurmountable challenges and irrevocable losses in ramping our business during 2008/2009. Given the rejuvenated Indian economy, we're on our way to revamp our business model and one key metric to regain investor confidence is to secure unencumbered rights to our 'iFon' intellectual property in India," explained iVoice Managing Director V.P. Balaji. "As of February 2015, we've challenged all of Apple's registered/pending 'iPhone' trademarks before IPAB and TMR in India." The company's operations director Venkateshwaran Vaiyapuri added, "We've filed one more rectification/cancellation petition against Apple's registered Trademark number 1634050 'iPhone with Apple Logo' to cement and consolidate our IPR battle. With this final petition, we've challenged Apple's attempt for potential proprietary claim for 'iPhone' in India and such would convey a strong message to Apple that we're very serious in protecting our intellectual property rights." The initial recertification petition was filed in October 2014.
Apple has not commented on the ongoing "iFon" dispute, but the company does not seem deterred by iVoice's moves. At the end of February, Apple offered a price drop for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus devices in India on major e-commerce websites like Flipkart and Amazon. From October to December, Apple sold 500,000 units between the two smartphones in India and sources suggest it looks to double these sales by September 2015. According to senior trade partners of Apple India, the Cupertino tech giant expected 20 to 25 percent of iPhone sales in the region will be generated by e-commerce. Apple has not officially made any announcements on iPhone pricing and sales plans in India at this time.
No comments:
Post a Comment