Apple has always been sloppy with trademarking names. Here is the latest of a dozen similiar issues they have had these last few years, via WebProNews:

The iPhone 5 just recently launched in Brazil last week as Apple’s flagship device made its way into 50 more countries around the world. At the same time, a local Brazilian electronics manufacturer is going to compete with the iPhone 5 by selling the IPHONE.

IGB Electronics SA announced this morning that the company will begin selling the IPHONE in Brazil as an entry level Android device. The first device to be sold under the IPHONE name is called the Gradiente Neo One. It runs on Android 2.3, and features dual-sim capabilities, 3G, Wi-Fi and bluetooth.

So, how is IGB able to sell a product called the IPHONE in Brazil while Apple currently sells the iPhone? The company had applied for the IPHONE name in 2000, and finally secured the rights in 2008 from a patent regulator.

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CHRISTOPHER EMLEY

If your intellectual property goals are to protect your right to use your ideas and to prevent others from patenting them, publishing a technical disclosure rather than filing for a patent, may well make good business sense. For starters, the entire patent process can run $25,000 and up. Publishing a technical disclosure will cost you less than 300 bucks. This can make even more sense if you have multiple ideas or technologies you have developed, but no immediate way to monetize them. You also may not want to freeze out others from developing products around and in concert with your idea by filing a patent.

IP.com has a great free guide that you can download called “Defensive Publishing Via Technical Disclosures“.

Check it out.

And here is a great place to initiate a Patentability Search