Yes, you read that right; iCloud is suing Apple because of “iCloud”. And if you find that confusing, well, that’s exactly the point of an Arizona-based company why it is suing the California-based iPhone maker over the service it recently unveiled at its annual Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco in June 6.
A company named iCloud Communications filed a case against Apple on Thursday at the U.S. District Court of Arizona alleging the consumer electronics giant of infringing a trademark it owns for the name iCloud.
ICloud Communications should not be confused as the owner of the iCloud.com domain which Apple snapped up for a cool $4.5 million in April. That company is Xcerion which is based in Sweden and the iCloud service of the company was renamed CloudMe after Apple purchased the domain.
According to a copy of the lawsuit which was acquired by The Next Web, iCould Communications says that “the goods and services with which Apple intends to use the ‘iCloud’ mark are identical to or closely related to the goods and services that have been offered by iCloud Communications under the iCloud Marks since its formation in 2005.”
“However, due to the worldwide media coverage given to and generated by Apple’s announcement of its ‘iCloud’ services and the ensuing saturation advertising campaign pursued by Apple,the media and the general public have quickly come to associate the mark ‘iCloud’ with Apple, rather than iCloud Communications,” the lawsuit reads.
The suit then lists what it says is “a long and well known history of knowingly and willfully treading on the trademark rights of others.”
It lists Apple Inc versus the Beatles’ Apple Corp record label legal battle. It also mentions Apple’s disputes with McIntosh Labs and Management and Computer Services, Inc. the lawsuit also mentions Terrytoon’s Mighty Mouse trademark, Cisco’s iPhone trademark and Fujitsu Frontech North America’s pending iPad trademark before Apple launched its iPad.
The lawsuit further adds that:
“Apple’s announcement and launch of its ‘iCloud’ cloud computing service appears to be just one more example of Apple’s ‘act first and worry about the consequences later’ approach to trademark use as even the most cursory Internet search-which could have easily been conducted by any of the legion of Apple’s in-house marketing or legal staff-would have revealed the prior, long term usage of the iCloud Marks by iCloud Communications.”
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