Written by: Lex Protector|December 1, 2017
Authors: Stuti Raibagkar & Stuti Yagnik
The launch of iPhone X may be a success but it has cost Apple a lot. Apple is now faced with one more lawsuit and this time it’s by a Japanese company. Apple Inc. has got sued for using wordmark ‘animoji’- a latest feature in iPhone X. Suit has been filed by a Tokyo based firm ‘Emonster’ which has trademark registered for the word ‘Animoji’. Enmonster also alleges that they were approached by Emoji Law Group LLC which attempted to purchase his Animoji trademark and that was believed to be working on behalf of Apple.
Emonster owns the IOS app called Animoji which was launched in 2014, which allows people to send emojis that are animated in a loop like GIFs. The app asks users to compose message kind of like how they would format a line of code in Python or Javascript with parentheses and brackets that separate the kinds of effects they want to add to text or emoji. Similarly, iPhone X’s Animoji feature lets people transform their face into customized moving emoji using Apple’s face recognition technology. This was the most amazing thing on Apple’s new iPhone. Both, the application and the feature in iPhone X involved moving animation. In the lawsuit filed in a US federal court, Emonster said that, “Apple made the conscious decision to try to pilfer the name for itself.” The lawsuit further read, “This is a textbook case of willful, deliberate trademark infringement.” With full awareness of Plaintiff’s Animoji mark, Apple decided to take the name and pretend to the world that ‘Animoji’ was original to Apple. It was also said that Apple knew about Emonster’s trademark ‘Animoji’ because it was in Apple store. Apple allegedly offered to buy the trademark, and when it was turned down, still kept using the name. Not only it kept using the Trademark, but also filed a petition to cancel the mark. Apple was using the word ‘Animoji’ although Emonster had owned trademark over it since 2015. Emonster in this lawsuit is seeking an unnamed amount of money in damages and a court order to immediately block Apple from continuing to use the name.
Intellectual Property Rights have always made it possible for every Trademark owner to save their mark from being misused by competitors in market and it should be the same when infringement is done by a hug e enterprise which wouldn’t require stealing any existing mark for its benefits. Let’s see whether Apple changes the name of its feature or decides to go for settlement and pay damages to Emonster for using its Trademark. Whatever may happen, by filing trademark at the right time, Emoster looks one step ahead of apple. This shows that size of your opponent is immaterial if you maintain and protect your IP properly.
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