This seems fishy to me. I don't believe it is true.
Is the Pear brand doing this on purpose to get publicity?
Is the Pear brand doing this on purpose to get publicity?
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Apple Takes Legal Action Against Small Company With Pear Logo
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How is it really Apple's business to prevent other companies from registering wharever trademarks they want unless those trademarks infringe on Apple trademark (and in this case it obviously does not)?
You mean, like Apple brand registered apple as their trademark to get publicity? How dare they!
Actually, Apple has the option to come to an agreement with Pear instead. They don’t have to sue or charge anything either.
This just shows that using Apple as a company name was a lazy and stupid choice. Now they are afraid that if many companies choose similar names they will become just one item in the fruit basket.
A lazy and stupid choice that has caused them no problems after 45 years and which has been good enough to make them the world’s most valuable company.
But don’t let data get in the way of your narrative.
Prepear has gone out of their way to make their logo very different.
Different color
Different fruit
Different shape
Different angles
Stem on fruit v.s. none
Varying thickness of line
Outline, not solid
No bite v.s. bite
No dimple at base of fruit v.s. dimple
At first glance I thought it was an Avocado.
Different color
Different fruit
Different shape
Different angles
Stem on fruit v.s. none
Varying thickness of line
Outline, not solid
No bite v.s. bite
No dimple at base of fruit v.s. dimple
At first glance I thought it was an Avocado.
You are not comparing to what was actually in their trademark application, which is NOT in color, for example (it’s black).
The success has nothing to do with the name. The fact that they feel that they have to sue some company every two or three years for trademark infringement (usually apple related) is proof that the choice of name was poor.
First off Jobs never had a problem with a stylus, actually read history, he only hated a stylus when it was the ONLY method of input. He never said a stylus as a supplement input was bad. You really believe
Second Johnny Ive didn't just come up with an Apple watch after Jobs Died? I guarantee prototypes had been in works years before and continued with Steve's approval. Also the Apple Watch hasn't been stunningly successful. I leave that category to iPods, iPads and iPhones. Honestly the watch is like the Apple TV and just a hobby project, and do you really thing something like the Apple Watch edition for 10,000 dollars would have happened while Steve was around? Now that I will give you to an ivy, cook no jobs decision. Look how well that worked out.
Even if antennagate was such a huge failure then why did people still buy the iPhone 4 like crazy and we're very quick to forgive Apple. If cook had that type of failure he could never recover from it like jobs did.
Did you actually use OS X 10.5 or 10.7 because I did and neither at the time were considered failures. Leopard was amazing when it first came out, it's only flaw was it got shadowed by Snow Leopard which was all about refining pre existing code and API and stability. Lion was never a failure either, it was a great OS at the time but it was the first time OS X had started to iOSify like the app store being introduced and people were just timid. One of the biggest complaints out of lion is it didn't come on a physical CD and people freaked. And where are we now? Yeah huge failure. OS X (MacOS) has never been a failure on releases until recently when there have been crazy bugs released with new OS releases. Do you know what complaints we had in these forums back in the 10. 0-8 days were really about. Most of the complaints were the widgets buttons don't align or look to cartoonish or why is there a brushed metal UI mixed with the aqua UI, which unlike now is, how did Apple release this buggy POS OS, do the even have q/a. Back in the day we didn't hold of on installing new OS X updates because we were afraid it would bork our PC up. Everyone here jumped right in trying to actually figure it all out and didn't worry about a few bugs because there was never show stopping ones. So I don't know where I get failure from with jobs. Was jobs perfect, hell no of course he made mistakes but he learned and innovated around them.
I think the long and short of it is the threshold is going to be different at every company. Some companies are well known bullies. There are clearly optics Apple's attorneys are seeing that we are not privy to that they believe are worth spending money and time over.
Whether Apple fully intends to go through the whole TTAB process remains to be seen or if this is just a scare tactic to get them to back off on the registration which is unfortunately common since it costs money for a defense.
USPTO is not an enforcement agency so when you register a mark, it goes up for opposition. Unfortunately more legally sophisticated entities can block you and that's ultimately what's happening here.
That's an interesting choice of words. Were you in the design process?
You only "go out of your way" if you're doing something you know is questionable and not get caught.
If Apple can prove their logo was the source of inspiration for this identity, which they skirted around, case closed.
FWIW as a designer, if I was going to put something on the App Store, my first choice wouldn't be to use a fruit, period. Maybe add a utensil or something to denote a list of items or something to the mark. Lots of ways to spin the word "Prepear" without using a single Pear symbol.
Yeh it kind of sucks that Apple has a monopoly on single silhouettes of fruit, but that's the world we live in. They have also spent millions of dollars in ad revenue and awareness to get this to point. I can also remember an Apple at one point that was more or less bankrupt that had days to live.
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Since this is a trademark objection and not a copyright infringement case, the real question is whether or not the logo is sufficiently distinct so as to not have a likelihood of confusion among consumers.
While I'm not sure Apple should prevail in this opposition (to the federal registration of Super Healthy Kids' service mark), I think it's a closer call than many here seem to appreciate.
Apple is claiming, among other things, dilution by blurring. That's not the same as a likelihood of confusion claim. Based on the changes made in 2006 by the Trademark Dilution Revision Act, and subsequent interpretations thereof, the marks don't have to be identical or substantially similar as they previously would have. To sustain a dilution by blurring claim, a plaintiff or opposing party (before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board) doesn't need to show that consumers will mistake the challenged mark for their own. The issue is whether the challenged mark is sufficiently similar to cause consumers to be reminded of the opposers' mark (i.e. the famous mark). It's about association, not confusion. And that can depend, in part, on how the respective marks are used - i.e., are they used for related products or services, e.g. software.
Further, under the TDRA, the degree of similarity is only one of 6 factors to be considered when it comes to a dilution by blurring claim. I'd say the balance of those 6 factors, on the whole, weigh in Apple's favor.
Apple is claiming, among other things, dilution by blurring. That's not the same as a likelihood of confusion claim. Based on the changes made in 2006 by the Trademark Dilution Revision Act, and subsequent interpretations thereof, the marks don't have to be identical or substantially similar as they previously would have. To sustain a dilution by blurring claim, a plaintiff or opposing party (before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board) doesn't need to show that consumers will mistake the challenged mark for their own. The issue is whether the challenged mark is sufficiently similar to cause consumers to be reminded of the opposers' mark (i.e. the famous mark). It's about association, not confusion. And that can depend, in part, on how the respective marks are used - i.e., are they used for related products or services, e.g. software.
Further, under the TDRA, the degree of similarity is only one of 6 factors to be considered when it comes to a dilution by blurring claim. I'd say the balance of those 6 factors, on the whole, weigh in Apple's favor.
Good point. I didn’t look at the underlying doc. If they are arguing dilution (and Apple’s mark is certainly famous), this is a pretty close call, I think.
That's a great analysis, and what most people on here are missing is the dilution part that Apple goes into way at the end of their claim.
Brands are built by associations. If you create a fruit logo and you work in tech or have an app, it's going to be much harder not to compare that association with Apple.
You took my quote out of context. Let me prephrase: if you had Apple's logo in mind while designing your own, it'd be pretty hard to argue against dilution.
Please, for the love of dog, try to use paragraphs when posting.
Apple Sold Over 30 Million Apple Watches in 2019 | The Motley Fool
That's more than the entire Swiss watch industry.
www.fool.com
...based on Cook's recent disclosure that the segment is now the size of a Fortune 150 company.
Apple pretty much commands 50% of the smart watch market. They sell more than ask the Swiss Watch industry combined. Sales are increasing year on year. They sold ~30 million units last year.
Only you can attempt to downplay these facts.
Given your apparent inability to accept facts there's really no further point in trying to discuss this any further as it's obvious you prefer to type in fantastical posts based on imagination and flights of fancy, rather than those rooted in facts.
Don't put a picture of a real apple on your produce on the box of apples that you're selling to consumers in the fruit and vegie section, people might think there's a laptop inside. Just ludicrous behaviour on the part of Apple.
Sure, but for some reason apparently didn’t. In any case, even if registration is denied they can still use it as a trademark (tm) and Apple would have to get them to stop through legal avenues. You are not required to register a trademark, doing so just gives you some additional advantages over not registering.
No, that's just you being ludicrous in your post. There's so much more to this than you seem to want to understand. Trademark law is a complex beast that you clearly don't grasp.
I wonder, if I create a dating app named Peach, who would sue me first, Apple or Nintendo xD
EDIT: Forget about it, there’s already an app named Peach. A social network. Kind of.
Hey @russell_314 I’m not sure what you disagree with... joking with the topic maybe?
I just can’t understand every time I make a light comment or a joke, people suddenly disagrees. O-kay...
EDIT: Forget about it, there’s already an app named Peach. A social network. Kind of.
Hey @russell_314 I’m not sure what you disagree with... joking with the topic maybe?
I just can’t understand every time I make a light comment or a joke, people suddenly disagrees. O-kay...
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This has nothing to do with names. This is Trademark law we're talking about and Super Healthy Kids, Inc filing of a trademark and Apple's filing of opposition made in March this year.