No exclusive Apple iPhone name in China

Apple in China is no longer the exclusive rights to the iPhone trademark.

Xintong Tiandi Technology registered in 2007, the brand name for making leather products, about five years after Apple had registered the same name in China for computer software and hardware. In 2012 Apple brought the case against Xintong Tiandi Technology for the Chinese trademark authority and filed a case to a lower court in Beijing. Both argued Xintong Tiandi Technology in the same.

China's trademark authority argued in 2013 that Apple could not prove that in 2007 iPhone was already a well-known trademark. A final judgment of the Supreme Court in Beijing endorsed that decision now. The court added that the first Apple iPhones were only sold in 2009 in mainland China.

Xintong Xiandi stated on its website that the judgment is a reflection of the free market.