The cat-and-mouse game between Apple and those trying to unearth upcoming product names through trademark searches just became more difficult for the cats …
Apple has long registered trademarks in countries that have no online search facilities, to make it harder for people to spot new registered names. U.S. law allows a company to register a trademark in any country in the world and later do so in the USA also, so long as the U.S. registration occurs within six months.
Jamaica has been a popular choice for Apple, as Bloomberg notes.
Irish lawyer Brian Conroy made something of a name for himself by paying local law firms to conduct searches for him, finding the trademarks for the iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, AirPods and Touch Bar – each time before the names had been officially announced. But it seems that he may not be so fortunate in the future.
The Jamaica Intellectual Property Office’s director Lilyclaire Bellamy claims the rule isn’t, in fact, new – but is instead a clarification of the existing rules. Either way, it looks like Apple will have an easier time keeping its product names secret – even if it doesn’t do quite so well when it comes to features and designs.
“You can no longer search for ‘any applications filed by Apple in the last X months,’” Conroy says, “which is what you really need to do to find trademarks for products which don’t yet exist and which we don’t know the name of.”
