Firm Owning 'IPHONE' Trademark in Brazil Open to Selling Mark to Apple

It's a done deal, you don't mess with Apple or it's lawyers.

Mess? They owned this trademark years before iPhone existed. How are they messing with Apple?

Apple should just buy Brazil.

It's a done deal, you don't mess with Apple or it's lawyers.

Not all countries are the US

In some countries you have to have RIGHT to win. Not money.

Let them think what they want, the truth is Apple is not some white angel living in a black hellish world. They have been often sued, including for trademark infringement over the name iPhone and had to settle.

It's not always a "clear cut win" for "Apple and its lawyers".

Apple should just buy Brazil.

They can't afford it.

Any country that is in a big business like that can be manipulated by money. Brazil is no exception. Apple could find 100 lawyers to fight this case and it doesn't matter where it is.

I don't think paying 100 top lawyers is gonna be cheaper than paying Gradiente for a license anyway. :D

By the way, those able to read in Portuguese should check the following link:

http://www.ie.ufrj.br/desenvolvimento/pdfs/novos_espacos_de_possibilidade_para_a_inovacao_tecnologica.pdf

It's a paper analyzing the Unitron case, when a well-known Brazilian company produced a Mac clone (the "Mac 512") through perfectly-legal reverse engineering means (i.e., no Apple patent in Brazil).

However, strong pressure from the US government + corporate lobbying from competing companies in Brazil made the military government backtrack from its original decision to allow the company to produce such clones - it's a fascinating story.

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All Apple has to do is tell Brazil they are going to stop making stuff in Brazil.

Then sit back and watch how fast Apple gets the trademark in Brazil.

What "stuff"? A few iPhones by Foxconn?

Brazil is the 5th (or 6th, depending on who you ask) largest economy in the world; the US is not even its largest trading partner anymore.

On the other hand, Brazilian tourists are the ones spending the most money of all nationalities in places like NY.

So it's more like this nowadays, given the dire state of the US economy: Brazil asks, the US concedes - not the other way round.