#animoji trademark

Apple might once again battle a lawsuit as they get sued for using "Animoji" on their recently announced iPhone X. Animoji was one of the key features the company presented during the announcement of their anniversary phone last September, and apparently a Japanese company already owns the trademark to it. District Court for the Northern District of California received a complaint against Apple from plaintiff's emonster k.k and it's owner Enrique Bonansea stating that the tech giant committed trademark infringement. According to a report by The Recorder, the Japanese software company emonster k.k came up with the term "Animoji" back in 2014 and had it registered as their trademark with the U.S. The said term was coined for a mobile app, Animoji - Free Animated Texting [Patent Pending], that the company marketed on Apple's very own App Store. Enrique Bonansea stated in the complaint that Apple was not only aware that the Animoji app existed but they even tried to purchase the rights from emonster. Not only that, Apple allegedly filed a cancellation of the trademark due to a naming technicality -- the Washington company "emonster Inc.", the company which the app is under, did not exist during the original filing of the trademark. Read more in our articles including "Apple reportedly sued for using Animoji trademark" and "realme C100, C100i now official, specs and price in the Philippines".