The issue is China's predatory trademark system forced them to abandon the Chinese name of the game worldwide, which affects their sales in other Chinese-speaking markets like the sovereign countries of Taiwan (ROC), Malaysia, etc.
Having been bit by this myself once, with someone registering my trademark after I failed to do it correctly, i'm a bit unhappy about the state of the law, but at least it provides a sense of security in simplicity, and I can't feel it being predatory.
In the case of China it surely feels in a different context as they are brazenly cloning and copying everything under the sun, but that doesn't really change the merit/drawbacks of the legal basis.
My impression from the reddit thread is that Apple would face legal problems in China if Apple allows sales in countries like Taiwan, but that impression may be incorrect.
Either way I agree that they appear to be incompetent wrt legal matters.
It would be reasonable for Apple to take down all the uses of the Chinese name worldwide as a precaution. However, they should still allow the English spelling everywhere, including China. I'm sure they'll be able to work it out.
Germany is also a first-to-file country
All sources I have read about this topic come to the conclusion that the entity that uses a trademark first wins over an entity that regsiters a trademark afterwards.
Example:
https://www.dpma.de/docs/dpma/veroeffentlichungen/broschuere...
German Quote: "Welche Rolle spielt das Datum der Anmeldung? Wie bereits unter „Markenrecherche“ erwähnt, gilt im Markenrecht der Prioritätsgrundsatz. In der Regel hat die ältere Marke – das heißt die Marke mit dem früheren Anmeldetag – die besseren Chancen, sich im Konfliktfall durchzusetzen"
which roughly translates to:
"What role does the date of registration play? As already mentioned under "Trademark search", the the principle of priority applies in trademark law. As a rule, the earlier trade mark - that is to say the mark with the earlier filing date - will give you the better chances to assert yourself in the event of conflict."
This doesn't sound as clear cut and is worded this softly simply because of Very Old (think 50-100 years) German companies having very legitimate claims of prior use that can't be overlooked, although the german legal system prefers the simpler and cleaner first-to-file ruling.
That means in effect for startups first-to-file is the guideline you should look into. I've paid expensive lawyers to learn this lesson.
But what does that have to do with the quesion here?
The question is if an entity that started using a trademark earlier would win in court over an entity that registered the trademark later.
For all I know the answer is yes.
> The registration of a trade mark may be cancelled if another person has acquired rights to a trade mark prior to the date that is relevant for the seniority of the registered trade mark within the meaning of section 4 no. 2 or to a commercial designation within the meaning of section 5 and these entitle him to prohibit the use of the registered trade mark in the entire territory of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Where the cited section 4 no. 2 is
> The following shall give rise to trade mark protection: [...] the use of a sign in trade in so far as the sign has acquired public recognition as a trade mark within the affected trade circles
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_markeng/englisch...
You might try to go this route via a court-case, while the chances in our case with prior use and trade show appearance was evident were rated as very bad by our lawyers, but again, this is usually out of scope for the resource options of a startup/small business.
1. The mark has to be used in a commercial setting
2. The mark has to enjoy a reputation within that sector of the market
3. The mark has to have distinctive character
Problematic is usually the second one. It is interpreted by the Federal Supreme Court that (bearing exceptional circumstances) at least 50% of participants in the market have to recognize the mark. The more generic the mark is, the higher the threshold.
Don't want the risks that come with expanding globally? Stay in your home country. It'd be like someone trying to expand into Europe without knowing anything about GDPR. You need to know foreign laws well to protect yourself from foreign risks. Or don't go expand globally.
For example, they ought to have the upper hand in the U.S. as long as the Chinese name more commonly refers to their game than the copycat's (since U.S. is not first-to-file), but it sounds like Apple is nevertheless prohibited from including their game under Chinese name in the U.S. (for Chinese-speaking U.S. players) due to PRC law.
No country use first-to-invent anymore.
It's a slim but important distinction, but it's not like copyright works. You don't get to register someone else's trademark because you wrote it down somewhere and kept it in the safe for 20y.
Though with unregistered marks you may not be able to stop someone else from using a mark they adopted independently after your first use. Trademarks are territorial, and classification based (registered marks are registered for a particular class of business; not relevant in the OP, but worth mentioning).