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Strange, but I am still not sold on the idea that Apple® owns Apple so as far as I am concerned the word THE is available for any use.
by LinuxBender 4y ago
Strange, but I am still not sold on the idea that Apple® owns Apple so as far as I am concerned the word THE is available for any use.
- bombcar 4y agoA trademark just means you have a limited right of usage in a defined area (of course, Apple's continues to get larger and larger, but other Apple companies exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Records https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Records https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Leisure_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Leisure_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Bank_for_Savings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Bank_for_Savings and the word apple is available for various other things, too).
- cardiffspaceman 4y agoApple Records is a division of Apple Corps Ltd, though. The other two are not related to the former Beatles.
- LinuxBender 4y agoOh I get it, I just don't ascribe to this concept at all. I believe a word, symbol or logo should be truly unique before some legal restriction could be placed on it.
- bombcar 4y agoYeah, I feel trademarks should be limited to things like "Farmer Bob's Old Tyme Remedy" or random strings of characters rather than simple, single words.
- tshaddox 4y agoDo you think it should be legal to deliberately deceive consumers that a product you produce is actually produced by a well-known reputable company?
- bombcar 4y agoI think Bender is saying a company shouldn’t be able to be named Apple but have to be a made up word like Sorny or something g.
- LinuxBender 4y agoExactly. Apple was already taken by the fruit. I see taking "ownership" of common words a form of forced irrational compliance and to some degree a form of extortion at least by my definition of extortion.
- tshaddox 4y agoSo again, do you think it should be legal to deliberately deceive consumers that a product you produce is actually produced by a well-known reputable company? Should I be allowed to sell my own smartphones using packaging that clearly indicates that the famous company Apple produced the phone? Or are you saying that, since the word "apple" existed before the company Apple, that anyone ought to be allowed to sell counterfeit Apple smartphones?
- LinuxBender 4y agoI am saying that Apple the current company and any other company squatting on common terms must be ordered to change their name and in this case they must provide a dozen fresh Apples to anyone that ever purchased an Apple product. A valid name might be "Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne's and Steve Wozniak's Computers of Los Altos" where the company was founded. Companies should not be deceiving people with cool or hip sounding company names. The names should be descriptive and entirely boring.
- tshaddox 4y agoWould family names not be allowed either?
- bombcar 4y ago
- colechristensen 4y agoI'm fine with nobody else being able to sell an apple computer. AAPL's repeated stepping on the Beatles' record label and holding company called Apple's trademarks were pretty heinous though (so far as trademark abuses go) until they were resolved by AAPL buying out the trademark completely for perhaps half a billion dollars in 2007. The whole purpose of a trademark is being able to own the name of your product so nobody else can pretend to be you and confuse/steal/defraud your customers. That doesn't mean that AAPL can stop anybody from selling fruit or calling a completely unrelated product something apple related.