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The company has opposed singer-songwriters, school districts, and food blogs for trying to use brand names or logos that include an apple, pear, or pineapple.
Ryan Mac reported from Los Angeles and Kellen Browning from San Francisco.
Genevieve St. When John launched a sex and life coaching blog in 2019, he designed a logo for the cut neon green and pink apple business to resemble the female genitalia.
Shortly after applying for registration Emblem That year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and Miss St. John got an unpleasant surprise. His request was contested – by Apple.
at 246 pages opposition applicationThe lawyers for the iPhone manufacturer, Ms. He wrote that John’s logo “is likely to tarnish Apple’s reputation, which Apple has developed in part by trying not to associate itself with overtly sexual or pornographic material.”
Mrs. St., 41, a human resources specialist in Chandler, Arizona. John was devastated. Not having the money to hire a lawyer and take down the tech giant, she decided not to respond to Apple’s challenge. This paved the way for a presumptive judgment in favor of the electronics giant.
Mrs. St. “I wasn’t even making any money out of it,” John said of his hiatus blog. “But this is Apple and I don’t have a million dollars so I won’t argue with them.”
Mrs. St. John is one of dozens of entrepreneurs, small businesses and companies that Apple has pursued in recent years to refer to trademark names with the word “apple” or stemmed fruit logos. Apple, the world’s most valuable publicly traded company between 2019 and last year, $2.6 trillionfiled 215 trademark objections to defend its logo, name, or product titles. Technical Transparency Project, a non-profit guard dog. The group said that number is more than the estimated 136 trademark objections Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Google collectively filed over the same period.
It’s a more common word than company names like Apple, Microsoft or Google, and the high rate is partly due to this. Many copycats, especially in China, tried to design Apple’s name or logo in the tech and entertainment industries to make money.
However, Apple has often targeted assets that have nothing to do with technology or are very small in size. It even set its sights on logos featuring other fruits such as oranges and pears.
His cohorts include an Indian food blog, the Department of Energy, a Wisconsin public school district, and Mattel, which makes the hit card game Apples to Apples. Apple also objected orange logo It’s used by a curbside pickup truck company called Citrus. Last year, he settled a dispute Meal planning app called Prepear after the creator of the app agreed to change a page its pear logo To make it less like Apple’s.
Christine Farley, a professor at the American University Washington College of Law, said the scale of the company’s campaign meant “bullying tactics” and Apple was unnecessary to shield the public from confusion.
citrus; Energy Department; Super Healthy Kids, the company behind Prepear; The Patent and Trademark Office declined to comment. Mattel did not respond to requests for comment.
Apple spokesperson Josh Rosenstock said the law “requires” the company to protect trademarks by appealing to the Patent and Trademark Office if there are concerns about new trademark applications.
“When we see applications that may be overly broad or confusing to our customers, our first step is always to reach out to them and try to resolve them quickly and amicably,” he said. “Legal action is always our last resort.”
Apple files trademark objections against entities that have received logo or name approval from the Patent and Trademark Office. In these contrasts, the argued “Apple brands are so famous and instantly recognizable” that other trademarks will weaken the strength of the brand or cause “the ordinary consumer to believe that the applicant is associated, affiliated with, or sponsored by Apple.”
Some of those targeted said that although they were convinced that their trademark did not infringe Apple’s domain, they failed to show that the challenges were pointless because they did not have the resources to fight the company before the Trademark Litigation and Appeals Board. Between 2019 and 2021, 37 organizations, or about 17 percent of organizations opposed by Apple or its subsidiary Beats Electronics, withdrew trademark applications. Another 127 individuals or organizations, or 59 percent, did not respond to challenges and defaulted, according to data from the Tech Transparency Project.
Stephanie Carlisi, an independent singer-songwriter, said she was shocked when Apple made trouble. trademark In 2020, her stage name is Franki Pineapple. filingsApple acknowledged that apples and pineapples were different, but said that “both are fruit names and thus carry a similar commercial impression.” The company also considered contesting Ms. Carlisi’s logo, which is an exploding pineapple bomb, according to the documents.
“It’s not even an apple,” said 46-year-old Ms Carlisi, who has just started streaming music and has a seven-month listenership on Spotify. “You’re telling people they can’t confiscate any fruit or anything that has this connection to this giant company, Apple.”
Founded in 1974, the company originally known as Apple Computer wasn’t always this litigious. Before 2000, only a handful of trademark appeals were filed each year, reaching nine by 1989, according to the Tech Transparency Project. At least one of these oppositions It was an electronics retailer that sold computer parts under the name “Pineapple”.
In those years, Apple Computer was better known as a defendant in trademark lawsuits. In 1978, Apple Corps, the holding company founded by the Beatles, sued Apple Computer for trademark infringement; this was the first salvo in a series of legal disputes between the two companies. decades. in 2007, two apples finally agreed Granting all trademarks related to “Apple” to the Silicon Valley company.
Until then, Apple, which removed “Computer” from its name, was making dozens of brand objections every year.
New York University Law School professor Barton Beebe said that as Apple grows, the legal team likely wants to avoid dilution of the brand. In intellectual property theory, the legal argument is not that one will be confused with two different trademarks, but that issuing a replacement will reduce the value of a house logo or name, he said.
“Dilution is death by a thousand cuts, and you must prevent the first cut,” said Mr. Beebe. “That’s the judges’ argument.”
University of Richmond law professor Ashley Dobbs said Apple has since created a template for tough trademark filings. This is evident in a comparison of his responses to two applicants for whom he used cookie-cutter dissent.
One response was: Appleton District School DistrictA 16,000-student public education system with three interlocking apple logos in Appleton, Wis. the other was Big Apple Curry, It’s a New York City Indian food blog. In its filings against Apple, entire sections were copied verbatim to determine the company’s brand value – an “estimated $206 billion valuation” by Forbes in 2019 – and its level of “outstanding reputation and consumer recognition.”
Representatives for the school district and Big Apple Curry, both of which have withdrawn their applications, declined to comment.
“There’s a cost efficiency going after multiple people with the same argument,” said Ms. Dobbs. Apple’s Disney and Warner Bros. He added that it has outstripped other companies that have filed intellectual property lawsuits, such as
Sometimes Apple requests an extension of file against a new trademark from the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board and then contacts that entrepreneur or business to change its application. Dr. Lacye Brown, 38, an artist from Atlanta, who created a caricature of a fictional witch doctor named Apples, said it was “disruptive” for Apple to submit paperwork to ask for more time to potentially contest its trademark application in 2020. The trademark claim after discussions with Apple’s lawyers, who have never filed a formal objection.
But last year, Apple announced that Mrs. Brown’s tried to brand Dr. His podcast “Talk About Apples” based on the Apples character. inside that oppositionThe company argued that people might confuse his podcast with the podcast service.
“An African American witch doctor who talks about fictional fantasies, monsters and ghouls,” said Ms. Brown. “No one has associated me with Apple.” Still, he withdrew his podcast’s trademark application.
In 2019, Dr. Surya Reddy has applied for the trademark. logo and name From Apple Urgent Care, which operates clinics in Riverside County, California. Apple objectedas in its logo, it includes an apple with a missing piece and an “angled-split leaf”.
Dr. Reddy said he thought his lawsuit was ludicrous because Apple isn’t a medical care provider. However, he did not have the money to test this theory and dropped his application.
“I’m a small company,” he said. “Once they object, you feel very little.”
However, Ms. Carlisi responded to Apple in court and won a concession. The company has agreed to stop pursuing its opposition otherwise. including a disclaimer In her trademark application, she stated that Franki Pineapple, a nod to her late father Franki and the fruit sometimes thought of as a rebellious, feminist symbol, is not her real name.
While the legal strain cost her about $10,000, Ms. Carlisi took some inspiration from it. she said to him first singleHe was inspired by his battle with Apple, which uses a well-known stick-on profanity.
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