Apple could force a 111-year-old fruit company to change its apple logo
Apple could force a 111-year-old fruit company to change its apple logo
Apple wants to trademark an image of an apple in Switzerland, and this could force a 111-year-old fruit company to change its logo.
Apple wants to claim depictions of actual apples.
Would be funny if they can successfully counter-sue apple to stop using their logo
I mean, that's the way trademark laws in theory should work. Who got there first gets the logo. And the other side gets Jobs' mummified dick with some salt.
It isn't even their logo, they are trying to copyright images of apples.
“We have a hard time understanding this, because it’s not like they’re trying to protect their bitten apple,” Fruit Union Suisse director Jimmy Mariéthoz was quoted as saying by the outlet. “Their objective here is really to own the rights to an actual apple, which, for us, is something that is really almost universal… that should be free for everyone to use.”
This reminds me of the Big Mac decision. I can't remember where but there was a burger place that had a Big Mac burger but the name was not a copy of the McDonalds one, it was iirc because the owner's name was Mac. Anyway, they lost the case and therefore lost copyright protection on Big Mac, so Hungry Jacks/Burger King started renaming all their burgers to something something big Mac, just to mess with them. Maybe Apple will bite of more than they can chew and end up losing protection for the Apple logo or similar things.
McDonald's is notorious for suing any food-related company with a name starting with Mc or Mac, for trademark infringement. McDonald's lost to McNally's, a steakhouse in California, but I have to assume they've won enough to persist the policy.
Although in the 2010s it was observed that copyright lawyers on retainer to movie studios and record companies were over-eager to report infringement to media platforms even when it was obviously unintentional and not useful for piracy (e.g. dancing baby videos.) And Disney has a long wretched tradition of suing daycare places for wall murals long before the internet.
So this might be a matter of retained legal teams keeping themselves busy with overvigilence, since overenforcement makes such companies look like abusive dicks who deserve to be pirated (or worse, deserve to be not pirated).
Leave it to "Android Authority" to throw a shit fit over a nothing story. Apple lost this application in 2017, and will almost certainly lose this appeal filed in April. Yes, it's silly, but this article makes it sound like Apple is committing some sort of unspeakable crime, which it isn't.
Calm down, everyone.
The crime that these corporations are committing is robbing the public of it's own iconography, or trying to anyway.
Important not from that article:
It’s not the first time we’ve seen big tech companies attempt to trademark common terms or goods. However, a study by the Tech Transparency Project found that Apple filed more trademark oppositions over a three-year period than Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook combined.
If you think trademarking of common terms is a bad thing at all, apple seems to be the worst among big tech firms.
P.S. this "Android Authority" article put apple in the correct light in my opinion after reading it, and I use a lot of Apple products.
this whole argument is preposterous on its face to blame apple for anything when the problem is the laws which allow it. where's the outrage for the swiss apple company with their trademarked apple logo? nowhere.
you hate apple, and that's the source of the outrage and why you blame them rather than the courts and legislatures for their crappy IP laws.
Apple is forcing another company and the tax payers to waste time and money because they think they own the entire world. They should be barred from using the courts for any intellectual property matter because they keep abusing it.
Apple is doing no such thing. What they are doing is pursuing their rights under Swiss law, and if you have a problem with that, take it up with the Swiss government for writing their IP laws the way they have and with the Swiss courts for not dismissing their appeal out-of-hand.
It's peak entitlement to call something "abuse" simply because of your grudge against apple for doing something you happen not to like.
The article tries to push the narrative that Apple is going after small family farms too, I doubt Apple even knows the farm exists. Not to mention under Swiss and basically every other trademark law they aren't even allowed to trademark apples in general, it only grants its owner exclusive rights within a specific class of goods or services.
The article is total ragebait.
This just in, Apple sues the estate of 2000+ year old man for his depiction of an apple in Genesis, the popular and riveting first book in the collaborative effort written 2 millennia ago: The Bible.
I reached out to Apple's PR representative, I'll let you know if they get back to me.
Actually Moses was VERY prudent, and strategically didn't use the exact word 'apple' only 'fruit' and 'of the tree' - because he knew apple would be a litigious bitch
Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Apple's PR representative stated:
If all apples are fruit, and all fruit are of a tree, then surely all fruit of a tree are apples. The world needs to understand that every fruit is our intellectual property now. We've earned that place with our iconic innovation. We're currently in talks with Fruit of the Loom, and our team is confident that they will rebrand as 'Of the Loom'. It's a fresh, modern take for their products that will be mutually beneficial to both parties.
I reached out to Fruit of the Loom's PR representative, nothing yet.
Apple is a litigation company disguised as hardware sales. Steve "thermonuclear war" Jobs saw to this.
If the article is accurate and Apple is trying to secure IP rights over, "images of apples," surely no sane judge would rule in favour of such a wide ranging and foolish claim. I'm sure there are plenty of businesses who will be able to claim prior art over a picture of a damn apple.
Incidentally I'm trademarking the sun and then going after the entire country of Japan. I hope you aren't too attached to that flag.
A few years ago I tried to register a domain name which included the word "purple". I was told I couldn't because HP had trademarked the word "purple" so it was off the list of registerable words. I pointed out that my domain was in no way related to their purple laptops and I was told tough, no-one could for any reason register any domain which included the word "purple" because HP now owned the dictionary word "purple".
I'm still annoyed about it to this day.
Bullshit. They just don't want to deal with the lawsuit even though HP would be 100% in the wrong. But we don't have a justice system, just a legal system. If you got enough money you can make nearly anything the law.
They registered this particular image https://www3.wipo.int/madrid/monitor/en/showData.jsp?ID=ROM.1028240&DES=1, the rest of the story is conjecturing what might happen if TM is granted in .ch - I'm no expert, but it sounds unlikely to affect the fruit union.
They tried to sue Australian grocery-duopolly Woolworths for their apple/ pumpkin type W logo
wollies applied for a blanket trademark - which would allow them to sell laptops with that logo on it, which would be kind of hilarious
Amazing
Time to get my "Made for iPhone Granny Smith Apples".
Finally!
Just to be clear, Apple isn't asking the Swiss apple growers to change their logo. And it definitely isn't forcing them.
I assmue some journalist saw Apple making a very boring Swiss trademark application and decided to call up a local company with an apple in its logo to see what they thought about it. There's zero chance the company will have to re-brand.
The US apple industry uses an apple logo without any problem: https://usapple.org/
I hope they'll win, so everyone will understand how stupid and propriety our era is and there is nothing we can do about it, just stupid along with it.
Is it time to abolish trademarks yet?
In future corporations will sue farmers to force them to genetically modify their products, because they're "stealing the brand".
I love apple products, and have been a mac user since the 80s, but this is just silly.
OK this happens in Switzerland, yeah, I don't think they have any chance. If it would have been in the US, maybe but in Europe, it's a lot harder if you want to bully another company.
Btw, why Apple still didn't sue Nothing for their phone (1), the design of the LEDs on the back of the phone looks almost exactly like Apple logo
What ever happened with Meta and the tech company that already existed called Meta? (Just remembered that now) edit: looks like they settled
Wtf lol