Apple faces trademark fight over the name 'Vision Pro' in China
China's Huawei registered a trademark for the name "Vision Pro" four years before the unveiling of the Apple Vision Pro -- but it's not the first time Apple has had such naming issues.
Apple has long since moved away from prefixing new device names with an "i", but Apple TV was originally announced as iTV. Until, that is, the major British broadcaster ITV objected.
Then the name iPad was first licensed to Fujitsu, and "iOS" was a trademark of Cisco -- as was "iPhone."
Now according to Gizmo China, the same thing is happening again with Apple Vision Pro. The publication has found an entry for "Vision Pro" in the China Trademark Network, filed by Huawei on May 16, 2019.
At present, that filing grants the company exclusive rights to the name from November 28, 2021, to November 27, 2031. The approved filing states that the name is to be used on products that include head-mounted virtual reality devices.
Currently, Huawei has product lines including the smart headset Vision Glass, and a series of devices called Huawei Vision Smart Screen. At present, it does not have a Vision Pro product.
In theory, then, Apple could have to change the name of the device for it to go on sale in China. Alternatively, it could simply not sell the device in that region -- and Apple has said it will initially only launch the Apple Vision Pro in the US.
What's more likely to happen, though, is that Apple will press on with the name and at some point reach an agreement with Huawei. This is what has happened with all such cases, with the exception of ITV -- which really could not lose the name it has been using since 1955.
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I'm currently interested in a Vision 3 to replace a Samsung TV if it gets a release in Spain. The previous model was available here.
We are talking about well known, commercial products (and not all of them are limited to China) so it is hard to believe Apple wasn't well aware of the situation.
It's possible that the issue has already been taken into account.
In this particular case it is Vision Pro and it is taken for exactly the same product category as the Apple Vision Pro.
But then again, we used to have 'Apple Computer' and the fight with 'Apple music' .
How many different words are there for 'Apple'?
I don't disagree with you on the basics but that's how things are.
It also has cameras for TVs for AR related tasks and gesture support.
There are also non-eyewear products like AR-HUDs.
It's very active in the imaging 'Vision' fields and has been working on XR from both a consumer and industry perspective.
https://consumer.huawei.com/en/visions/s/
Definitely living in different worlds. No Samsung or Huawei device will ever make it into my household by choice. Huawei has been banned by both Canadian and US governments for cellular network gear over concerns of possible spying via installed equipment.
Agreed. Take MeeTime as one example of copying FaceTime. Isn't "Me Time" actually the opposite of "We Time"? Calling it "WeeTime" obviously wouldn't work.
There is absolutely no requirement for that but its case is strengthened by the fact that Huawei has been actively working in the AR field for years and with different shipping products.
LiDAR, camera technology, gesture technology, AI, display technology, ultra low latency communications, chipsets, battery technology, software.
On top of that it is also developing the ICT backend technology to support ubiquitous use of XR.
If it trademarked the 'Vision Pro' name for ten years, it's reasonable to assume that a product might appear during that timeframe.
As for the copycat claims, did you know that Apple is rumoured to licence almost 800 patents from Huawei, and over the last six years Huawei has pioneered a lot of features that have ended up in Apple products.
The Mate branding has been around since 2013. As computers and tablets were introduced, the naming spilled over into those categories as they were built with interconnection in mind. Hence the MateBook and MatePad. The naming makes a lot of sense.
There is also a MatePad Paper with no Apple product equivalent.
The Freebuds Pro were actually more advanced than Apple Airpods at launch. I see nothing similar in the name.
At this year's WWDC did you notice that soon Apple will let you choose more devices for camera input/output (I can't remember which off the top of my head). Where have I heard that before? HarmonyOS!
And they also claimed faster syncing/lower Bluetooth latency. Where have I heard that before? HarmonyOS!
Air gestures? This is a few years old now:
Smart Eyewear:
https://consumer.huawei.com/en/wearables/huawei-eyewear/
That's now on Gen 3.
Vision Glasses:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Huawei-Vision-Glass-smart-glasses-debut-in-China-with-Micro-OLED-displays.673972.0.html
I really don't think they will have any problems defending their use of Vision Pro if it comes to the crunch but I don't think Apple will even try because it's no secret where Huawei is heading with all these technologies.
As for a valid defence against the copycat claims, patents and products are perfect for that, along with massive R&D outlay.
Anyone who only copies, doesn’t invest 20 billion dollars in R&D every year and constantly make the top rankings for patent filings around the world. It doesn't pioneer technology in several key industries.
Huawei is on course to finally crack some decades old technological walls. Shannon's limit was the first of the biggies to fall. Von Neumann architecture in data storage scenarios looks to be next.
Here is some good reading for you:
I think you may have lost touch with reality.
Remind me where Apple's 5G modem is?
Apple is a CE company. It is vitally important that you keep that front and foremost in your trains of thought.
Huawei has far more breadth (and responsability) in industry than Apple.
Here is just the latest announcement, in this case in for fintech:
https://e.huawei.com/en/news/2023/industries/finance/data-infrastructure-architecture-f2f2x
That is an architectural proposition that Apple would never touch. It has nowhere near the resources or knowhow to get anywhere near that kind of mission critical technology.
TSMC had Huawei as one its major customers and often began mass production of Huawei chips before starting Apple runs. That's why, up until government sanctions at least, Huawei and Apple were releasing phones on the latest nodes at the same time.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/12/14/huawei-surveillance-china/
and;
https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/14/22834860/huawei-leaked-documents-xinjiang-region-uyghur-facial-recognition-prisons-surveillance
The Washington Post says it obtained the PowerPoints from a public Huawei site before they were taken down. According to the report, the slides included details on Huawei’s involvement with other companies in creating several systems and had metadata dating them anywhere from 2014 to 2020 (with copyright dates being listed from 2016 to 2018).