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I don't think someone is going to the Apple Store to watch Fantastic 4 or going to Apple Cinemas to get a MacBook Air by mistake. This lawsuit is plain dumb.
Your post got me thinking in that Apple is the one complaining about the issue of confusion but here is the thing, it is Apple that has created the confusion by going into the movie business. People will visit Apple Cinema to watch movies like Fantastic 4, Spiderman, Iron Man because when they see billboard adverts of the movies they know where to got to watch it. Now take the wildly published F1 movie, Apple was one of the production companies of he movie and one of the movies distributor's thus any promotional material for the movie would have Apple's name plastered over it. Seeing the Apple name on posters of the movie, many people will be of the view that Apple Cinema is somehow linked to all of this due to the Apple name.

I therefore wonder if Apple Cinema's lawyers could argue around that point that Apple themselves created the confusion to begin with by adding movie production to it's catalogue of things it's involved in because if it had not done this there would have been no problem.
 
Meanwhile... Apple Records was founded in 1968.
 

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Good. It’s a movie theater, Tim. No one is confused here.
Back in the day, I would have made a similar argument. I honestly forget the full details, but it is easily searchable, but there was a dispute between Apple Records (the company that produces Beatles music) and Apple, Inc. And then something about how people aren't going to confuse Apple computer with Apple music/records because Apple computer was not in the music industry at that time. True, it wasn't at that time, but look at it now. It certainly has expanded and even has expanded to have its own studio and streaming service. So yeah, at this point, Apple Cinemas can be confused with Apple, Inc.
 
Well, let the courts decide.
Winner: lawyers first
Popcorn ready
Sadly, the courts won’t decide. Apple Cinemas will lose ultimately because Apple can afford to litigate forever, whereas the other guys can’t.
 
Good for them! I mean they are going to end up losing but I appreciate the fight in them.
 
Apple essentially stole the ability to use an apple as ones branding.
Not true. Plenty of Apple-named businesses.

Apple is asserting its trademark in an area where there is an overlap and where the other guys have already had their trademark denied. In essence, just finishing what the patent and trademark office has already made a determination.

I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know who’s right and who’s wrong. But Apple is not and cannot assert ownership over the use of the word Apple universally or even broadly and I don’t need to be a lawyer to know that.
 
LOL. Apple is a generic word man. Stop fanboying
Apple as a company name is no longer just a generic word. Apple notoriously had a legal fight with The Beatles over the name Apple decades ago. This is not a new concept. Any company using the name "Apple ____" with an Apple for a logo may be found in violation if it's close enough. I don't necessarily agree with it, but that's how it has worked historically.
 
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I mean... this is coming from the company who tried to buy the iPhone trademark from Cisco, a company that had a physical product called iPhone (can't remember if it was under the Linksys brand), and when they said no, Apple released it anyways.

Let's not forget Cisco's IOS operating system, which existed decades before Apple's IOS.

Was there ever a dispute between McIntosh Labs (which makes stereo equipment) and Apple's Macintosh computer?
 
Are you sure Apple registered a trademark for "Apple the film exhibitor"? "iTunes" name seems a little bit off.
That doesn’t matter at all. Apple is a trademark and their business in the film industry predates Apple Cinemas by nearly 15 years to some extent.

Anyway, Apple Cinemas argument stems from the Apple Valley geographic region, and if they honestly believed that, they would be names Apple Valley Cinemas.

Apple is no more a specific geographic descriptor as west or valley or new or high or maple or whatever.
 
You’re joking, right? A casual average person wouldn’t be confused from watching F1, an Apple Studios film from Apple Inc, at an Apple Cinemas?

Let’s talk to AMC Theatres and have them rebrand to Disney Cinemas. By your logic, no one would be confused by watching a Disney movie at a Disney Cinemas.
By your logic if I open a restaurant called apple foods would Apple sue me 30 years time if they decide to start selling food by then?
 
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Now I'm worried for little Apple Bank, a little NYC-metro bank. I don't bank there but they're cute (not how I pick a bank but some people do). However, once Apple banking expands beyond Apple Card, who gets to be Apple Bank? Though if Apple really wants to be a bank maybe they should just buy them? They wouldn't even have to change their name...
 
So we need to wait for Apple Cinemas to start making "original media" before Apple can go after them?

Because Apple Cinemas doesn't create movies. They are a way to watch movies. You know, the way you can watch movies with the Apple TV+ streaming service (2019), the Apple TV app (2016), the Apple TV device (2007), on the Apple Cinema Display (1999), the Macintosh TV (1993), the Apple Interactive TV Box ('90s) or the Pippin (1996). Or basically any Apple device since Quicktime came out.

Apple has been involved in the creation of movies relatively recently, since 2019. But they have been creating ways to watch movies - what you do at a theater - for more than 30 years.
Trademark law is generally not silly enough to pretend all media consumption happens in a single industry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer?wprov=sfti1

Otherwise AMC that airs movies and made Breaking Bad and Mad Men on TV and AMC+ service, would be in a dumb fight with AMC that runs AMC At Home on demand and AMC theaters.
 
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