Apple Faces Trademark Lawsuit; Japanese Company Claims They Own 'Animoji'
Apple is being sued by a Japanese company over the trademark of one of its newest features called Animoji.
On Sept. 12, Apple introduced several new technologies and features especially for their iPhone line. The iPhone X will come with a TrueDepth camera that will be able to precisely scan a person's face for Face ID. This also allowed for the addition of the Animoji feature, where the iPhone X can detect a person's head movements and make selected emojis follow them.
It turns out though that the whole concept and the very name "Animoji" was not as new as expected.
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Last week, a Japanese company named Emonster filed a lawsuit at the District Court of Northern California against Apple for the alleged trademark infringement of "Animoji."
In fact, an Animoji app already exists on iTunes and App Store and was officially named: "Animoji™ - Free Animated Texting [Patent Pending]." The app's page indicated it was developed by Emonster Inc.
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs said what Apple did with Animoji was a "deliberate trademark infringement" and added that the Cupertino, California, technology giant "decided to take the name and pretend to the world that 'Animoji' was original to Apple."
The plaintiffs also claimed that Apple was well aware of Animoji's existence even before their Sept. 12 unveiling event since the former's messaging app had already been on the App Store. Added to that, Emonster mentioned that Apple had also tried to buy the trademark from them but the offer "was rebuffed."
"Apple could have changed its desired name prior to its announcement when it realized Plaintiffs already used ANIMOJI for their own product. Yet Apple made the conscious decision to try to pilfer the name for itself—regardless of the consequences," the plaintiffs added.
Aside from the alleged attempt to purchase the mark from Emonster, Apple had also filed a petition to cancel the Animoji trademark from the Japanese company with one of the grounds cited as: "Registrant not rightful owner of mark for identified goods or services."
