I thought Prepear was safe after the modification. This was their logo before Apple’s first lawsuit.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Takes Legal Action Against Small Company With Pear Logo
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
True, but its intent is to avoid confusingly similar trademarks. I do not see how Prepair
s logo would be confused with Apple's. I doubt a consumer, presented with packaging bearing each logo would confuse which is which or conflate the two.
Yes, companies need to protect their logos, even if it seems silly, such as OSU vs OSU recently. In this case, however, I think Apple is pushing the envelope and hoping they simply can bleed the company dry if they refuse to give in.
True, and not all such cases are necessarily adversarial.
Except in that case they were selling the same product and the product in question bore close resemblance to the other, thus causing confusion. Interestingly, even the winner "lost" in that case.
While I think Apple was in the wrong in thinking they own the apple as a corporate logo, at least in the bike path's case they used an apple outline somewhat similar to Apple's cutout apple logo.
In fairness to Apple, there could be confusion because they also forced you to one set of symbols on the path, had to follow it and no one could make any changes without their approval, which could be withdrawn and your change removed without notice, and any bumps or holes were fixed if they wanted to and any that were deemed vintage were left as is.
So... the descendants of Samuel Colt should sue the NFL over the name of the team in Indianapolis. I frequently confuse firearms and footballs 
In all seriousness, back in 1988, the Italian firearms company, Beretta, filed a $500 million lawsuit against General Motors for trademark infringement over the name of the Chevrolet Beretta. The case was settled out of court for $500,000. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-02-23-fi-433-story.html
In all seriousness, back in 1988, the Italian firearms company, Beretta, filed a $500 million lawsuit against General Motors for trademark infringement over the name of the Chevrolet Beretta. The case was settled out of court for $500,000. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-02-23-fi-433-story.html
Speaking of...
Losing Trademark Rights - How Can It Happen?
Losing trademark rights is a real possibility - read our guide on how to avoid this potential disaster.
secureyourtrademark.com
Only businesses that actively monitor and protect their marks, searching out and prosecuting cases of infringement, will continue to benefit from trademark rights. Businesses that fail to protect their trademarks will see their rights be diluted and possibly canceled through litigation.
Loss of Trademark Rights from Naked Licensing
Authored by D. Brian Kacedon, John C. Paul, and Susan Y. Tull Trademark owners may forfeit their trademark rights by engaging in "naked licensing" and failing to exercise adequate quality control ove...
A recent Ninth Circuit decision, FreecycleSunnyvale v. The Freecycle Network, No. 08-16382 (9th Cir. Nov. 24, 2010), found that a trademark owner engaged in naked licensing by failing to adequately control the use of its trademarks by members of its non-profit organization. Based on its analysis, the Court invalidated the trademarks.
Failure To Enforce Trademarks: If You Snooze, Do You Lose?
In the recent case of Abraham v. Alpha Chi Omega, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion regarding a fascinating dispute that involved a failure to enforce trademarks for more than 40 years. Background Thomas Kenneth Abraham is the world’s largest manufacturer of decorative...
www.forbes.com
Trademark owners should diligently protect their trademarks from infringement and other misuse (e.g., blurring, tarnishment, unfair competition, passing off, false advertising and cybersquatting) that may harm the owner’s goodwill and business reputation. A trademark owner is not required to uncover all possible uses that might conflict, or immediately commence a lawsuit against every possible infringer. At the same time, a complete failure to enforce will lead to a weakening of an owner’s marks, loss of distinctiveness over time and, as we saw in this case, potential forfeiture of certain available remedies.
What? There is little similarity other than it represents a different fruit. No risk of confusion. Just another case where lawyers will be the only winners.
Perhaps this has been stated previously. Apple, Inc. probably hires outside counsel whose focus is patent protection. This outside firm is probably paid a large quarterly fee to protect Apple' Inc. patent holdings by challenging approximate trademark infringements. This law firm is probably required to submit quarterly proof of their patent protection fillings to Apple, Inc in order to sustain their profitable contract for patent protection with Apple Inc. It is the patent protection law firm who will file challenges on behalf of Apple, Inc. Apple, Inc's internal legal team would be responsible to manage the contractual relationship with the outside patent protection law firm.
This is my hypothesis.
This is my hypothesis.
What “lawsuit”? No one is suing anyone here.
Apple have filed a notice of opposition against “Super Healthy Kids, Inc” trademark filing.
The amount of hyperbole in this thread is beyond ridiculous...
Did you read my post above? It gives plenty of examples of why this is required.
Don’t blame Apple for the systems weaknesses.
Does this come across to the laypeople as dumb bullying by a huge corporation? Totally.
However as courts have ruled, not doing this can (and will) weaken a defense later.
Next, we need to do something about this clear Apple logo knockoff:
Sad polar bear has everything to do with Apple.
Apple have a bladdy cheek. After all that Apple Music legal action.
Pear. Apple.
Nothing alike.
The logos. Nothing alike.
How precious.
Azrael. (Armchair Lawyer.)
Pear. Apple.
Nothing alike.
The logos. Nothing alike.
How precious.
Azrael. (Armchair Lawyer.)
Next, we need to do something about this clear Apple logo knockoff:
Well..yes...I see a clear Apple logo on that... Apple may want to protest that...
Azrael.
How is that merit shaming? If you need surgery, do you have it performed by someone who never went to medical school?
which is what victims of bullying usually do - roll over. As there’s not much else to do. Again: Apple is the new Microsoft.
You’re basing that on the premise that apple sued any of these entities?
Because they didn’t.
Speaking of...
Losing Trademark Rights - How Can It Happen?
Losing trademark rights is a real possibility - read our guide on how to avoid this potential disaster.
Only businesses that actively monitor and protect their marks, searching out and prosecuting cases of infringement, will continue to benefit from trademark rights. Businesses that fail to protect their trademarks will see their rights be diluted and possibly canceled through litigation.
Loss of Trademark Rights from Naked Licensing
Authored by D. Brian Kacedon, John C. Paul, and Susan Y. Tull Trademark owners may forfeit their trademark rights by engaging in "naked licensing" and failing to exercise adequate quality control ove...www.finnegan.com
A recent Ninth Circuit decision, FreecycleSunnyvale v. The Freecycle Network, No. 08-16382 (9th Cir. Nov. 24, 2010), found that a trademark owner engaged in naked licensing by failing to adequately control the use of its trademarks by members of its non-profit organization. Based on its analysis, the Court invalidated the trademarks.
Failure To Enforce Trademarks: If You Snooze, Do You Lose?
In the recent case of Abraham v. Alpha Chi Omega, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion regarding a fascinating dispute that involved a failure to enforce trademarks for more than 40 years. Background Thomas Kenneth Abraham is the world’s largest manufacturer of decorative...
Trademark owners should diligently protect their trademarks from infringement and other misuse (e.g., blurring, tarnishment, unfair competition, passing off, false advertising and cybersquatting) that may harm the owner’s goodwill and business reputation. A trademark owner is not required to uncover all possible uses that might conflict, or immediately commence a lawsuit against every possible infringer. At the same time, a complete failure to enforce will lead to a weakening of an owner’s marks, loss of distinctiveness over time and, as we saw in this case, potential forfeiture of certain available remedies.
and randomly attacking weaker companies will lead to customers giving Apple the finger, loss of image over time, and, as we will see in this case, potential forfeiture of certain future purchases.
where did I say I was basing this on anything? I simple re-phrased the legal mumbo jumbo above.
That’s why I asked the question. People are accusing apple of suing these companies, and that’s not what happened. They opposed letting these companies have a monopoly on certain trademarks - they didn’t try to stop this pear company from using their pear logo at all. They just don’t want the pear company to have a trademark on the logo, which would prevent others from using logos that look like the pear.
Any respect I had for Prepear has been lost by their deliberate falsification of their Change.org submission, to wit:
They have deliberately tugged at the heartstrings by negating to show the trademark they applied for, to wit:
This manipulation of the facts does them no favors here. The application is of a black and white outline and of no claimed color. They’ve used color in their Change.org petition in an attempt to falsify how “different “ their trademark is (“Look, ours is green and Apple is in black. How can they be the same?”
Why else would they change the color from that claimed in the application?
Personally I think that Apple’s trademark lawyers here are being potentially ham fisted, but I also understand enough about trademark law to grok the underlying reasoning.
As a layperson also find the logos distinctive enough to not cause confusion.
That said, “Super Healthy Kids, Inc” haven’t endeared me to their plight by this deliberate falsification. They could have been honest here, they chose not to.
For that reason I will not be signing the petition.
They have deliberately tugged at the heartstrings by negating to show the trademark they applied for, to wit:
This manipulation of the facts does them no favors here. The application is of a black and white outline and of no claimed color. They’ve used color in their Change.org petition in an attempt to falsify how “different “ their trademark is (“Look, ours is green and Apple is in black. How can they be the same?”
Why else would they change the color from that claimed in the application?
Personally I think that Apple’s trademark lawyers here are being potentially ham fisted, but I also understand enough about trademark law to grok the underlying reasoning.
As a layperson also find the logos distinctive enough to not cause confusion.
That said, “Super Healthy Kids, Inc” haven’t endeared me to their plight by this deliberate falsification. They could have been honest here, they chose not to.
For that reason I will not be signing the petition.
