A year ago Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple sued over the 'Memoji' Trademark that was granted to another Company last week by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office." Our report provided a full copy of the actual lawsuit filed by Social Tech regarding trademark infringement of "Memoji."

In a second report that we posted in July 2019 we presented more information. The report noted that "doing a search for 'Emoji' in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database. the results are as presented below. The first two numbers (88158604 and 87397135) are Apple trademark applications for the word Emoji. 

The third entry shows that 'Emoji' was registered / granted under #5566242. Following the link led to the trademark registered to "SOCIAL TECHNOLOGIES LLC LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY," out of Georgia. 

More importantly is that Apple filed their two trademarks for Emoji under International Classes 09, 21, 26, 36 and 38 – the very same classes already approved by USPTO for the Georgian company.

I pointed that out because you can't have one trademark owned by various companies if the execution or products are generally for the same thing. You can have many companies using the same word oriented trademark as long as the applications and industries are different.

To make this clearer, a copy of one of the Suspension Notices from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to Apple regarding the suspension of its second application for Emoji is presented below." 

Lastly, we noted in the July report that "While Apple may appeal the two decisions made by USPTO's trademark examining attorney's on both December 26, 2018 (for application #87397135) and on June 26, 2019 (for application #88158604) to suspend / cancel Apple's Emoji trademark application, for now, Apple may have to begin thinking of another name for their Emoji or acquire it from the Georgian company for an obscene amount of money if the company decides to play hardball."   

Today a new trademark infringement lawsuit was filed against Apple by legal counsel for Social Technologies in New York. The complaint states that the action brought against "Apple arises from Apple's improper and fraudulent use of the registered trademark symbol ® in connection with Memoji, a mark that Apple does not have a registration on in the the United States.  

Apple is fully aware that it doesn to have a federal registration on MEMOJI because Plaintiff Social Technologies has a federal registered the mark, Trademark Registration number 5,66,242."  

The lawsuit later states that "Although the infamous "trademark bully" has, and continues to infringe trademark rights, Apple has now surpassed run-of-the-mill trademark infringement. In violation of state and federal law, Apple is brazenly representing on its website that it has a registered trademark, which it indicates with the ® symbol, for MEMOJI. This representation is completely and verifiably false, as the registered Memoji trademark is held by Plaintiff Social Tech," in the U.S.

The Memoji trademark is listed on Apple legal's webpage here. We highlighted it in the image below.

In-part, Social Technologies is asking the judge for Relief that includes the following:  

Enter preliminary and permanent injunctions prohibiting Apple (and anyone in authority at Apple) from using the registration symbol in connection with the mark "Memoji."

An award of monetary damages, including actual, exemplary, and punitive damages.

A declaration that Social Tech owns the only federal registered Memoji trademark; and

A declaration that Social Tech owns and has the right to use its Memoji trademark for any and all purposes.

For more details of the current lawsuit, review the full SCRIBD document below, courteous of Patently Apple.

Apple - False Designation Complaint 19-Cv-9050 by Jack Purcher on Scribd

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