10 ms·
Apple wants rights to the image of apples in Switzerland
- sledgehammers 3y agoWe need to break down these tech monopolies.
- BrotherBisquick 3y agoWhich market does Apple monopolize?
- Springtime 3y agoWas puzzling they didn't include an image of said logo[1]. IIRC I've observed this for some other articles in the past covering trademark disputes. Is there a common reason they might do this? [1] https://www.swissfruit.ch/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/sov_news_neues_ci_cd-scaled.jpg https://www.swissfruit.ch/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/sov_new...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- paxys 3y agoProbably scared they would be sued by Apple
- colejohnson66 3y agoTrademarks, unlike copyright, are "use and protect it or lose it". There's no "expiry" date on them like copyrighted things have because brands sometimes live for over a hundred years. Letting someone take your companies name and logo just because you're "too old" isn't fair. This is because trademarks, unlike copyright, aren't about science and innovation; they're about preventing consumer confusion. Not protecting your trademarks can cause them to become "genericized". Wikipedia has a list of many that you've probably heard of and had no idea they were once trademarked.[0] Some lawyer at Apple probably caught wind of this Swedish company and took action. It's really that simple. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericize...
- lm28469 3y agoWe're talking about "apple" though, Apple the company didn't invent the word "apple" nor the shape of the fruit
- sweettea 3y agoSo what you're saying is that Apple is infringing on this Swiss company's trademark and must be forced to change their logo before logos with apples are irreversibly associated with Apple instead of the Swiss company?
- CivBase 3y agoNo kidding. I'd love to see the bigger company loose their logo in one of these petty trademark disputes someday.
- TRiG_Ireland 3y agoIt happened when McDonalds tried to trademark Mc in the European Union. They lost out to Irish company Supermacs.
- mcv 3y agoSadly they're still called McDonalds here.
- rdlw 3y agoLosing a trademark just means that it's not protected, and anyone can use it. Burger King Sweden was directly making fun of the Big Mac in their menu for a while after this case, since they could do it legally.
- rdlw 3y agoThis is not what happened, they had the trademark for "Big Mac". They took Supermac's to court because their name was too similar, and ended up losing the trademark. For a while Burger King Sweden was selling burgers using the name, apparently the "Anything But a Big Mac", "Burger Big Mac Wished it Was", etc.
- woobar 3y agoHere is the logo they used before 2011. [1] Not sure what inspired the new one. [1] https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/54990-111552-001-previous-logo-xl.jpg https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/54990-111552-001-pr...
- hu3 3y ago> THE FRUIT UNION Suisse is 111 years old. For most of its history, it has had as its symbol a red apple with a white cross—the Swiss national flag superimposed on one of its most common fruits. But the group, the oldest and largest fruit farmer’s organization in Switzerland, worries it might have to change its logo, because Apple, the tech giant, is trying to gain intellectual property rights over depictions of apples, the fruit. What is Apple going to do next? Try to get a patent on rounded corners for rectangular electronic devices?
- gymbeaux 3y agoI’m sure they’ve already tried to get a parent on that
- tsunamifury 3y agoThat’s the joke
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Varqu 3y agoThere should be a penalty for such bogus trademark claims, best as % of the global revenue. Then, maybe, they would learn that a corporation cannot bully others only because it has unlimited legal resources.
- ginko 3y agoNah, just void their trademark.
- myshpa 3y agoNah, just abolish patents and trademarks.
- survirtual 3y ago
- nico 3y agoThis is kind of the opposite of a similar situation that just happened in Chile The company NotCo got sued by the milk producers association for mis-using the word Leche (milk in Spanish) in their NotMilk product so it doesn’t use the word Milk The milk producers won and the courts have ordered NotCo to change the name of their NotMilk product
- sircastor 3y agoI think the Dairy Association recently has tried to litigate against products like Almond Milk to prevent them from using the word "milk".
- jagged-chisel 3y agoI feel like that is (should be?) more about food safety rather than IP. If you call it X but it has no nutritional similarity to X, that could be dangerous to consumers. That's not to say other attempts at protecting food-related terms aren't profit protection instead. Take "champagne" for example...
- isykt 3y ago>If you call it X but it has no nutritional similarity to X, that could be dangerous to consumers. And yet nobody seems to have been harmed by the existence of these terms: (1) Sweetbread (2) Coconut Meat (3) Coconut Milk (4) Nutmeat (5) Headcheese (6) Welsh Rabbit (7) Rocky Mountain Oysters (8) Boston Cream Pie (9) Scotch Woodcock (10) Cold Duck None of which refer to the nominal food definition of the term in their name.
- sashank_1509 3y agoThe kind of ridiculous situation that arises when a company is drowning in money with no idea what to do about it. Make work for lawyers, Make work for engineers, share buybacks, no good vision on how to spend the money
- bkishan 3y ago> no good vision Ah yes, years of continuing technical and product innovations, with "no good vision"
- izacus 3y agoAttacking fruit sellers is not "a vision".
- Retric 3y agoWhich isn’t what’s happening. A fruit seller has a hypothetical concern over a trademark application, which is how you turn a non story into a story on a slow news day.
- krono 3y agoApple is manoeuvring itself into a position where it could Without any other reasonable explanation for why it should Except for the one of which Fruit Union is afraid it would
- Retric 3y ago> Without any other reasonable explanation for why they should You want a reasonable explanation such as they might want to use a 3D logo when launching a 3D product their currently spending millions advertising.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- causality0 3y agoI'd love to see an interview with one of these lawyers. What trauma does it take to warp a human mind into thinking you can own the concept of images of a fruit? Or is this a case of pure sociopathy and the rule of law is the only thing stopping these guys from torturing animals and running over kids in the street?
- kashunstva 3y ago> What trauma does it take to warp a human mind into thinking you can own the concept of images of a fruit? That trauma goes by its other name: "money." Or sometimes by its synonyms, "Dollar, Pound, Euro, Swiss franc" among others.
- Croftengea 3y agoI bet the lawyers at Apple have some weird KPIs related to number of cases.
- surgical_fire 3y agoIt would be fun if they lost also the trademark of any apple-related image, including their silly bitten apple logo. Really, fuck IP and trademark laws. I see it as a net negative. I would rather throw this cursed baby away along with its shit water.
- SoftTalker 3y agoHow about fuck Apple? This is not the intent of IP and trademark laws, and Apple are the ones actually trying to abuse these laws to their advantage.
- mcv 3y agoApple are far from the only ones trying to do this sort of thing. In the past, we've seen companies trademark specific colours, common words ("windows"), and lots of other things. What trademark offices and judges need to remember is that the only reason trademarks exist, is to protect customers against impostors. Any trademark case that doesn't involve even the slightest chance of impersonation or confused customers, should be slapped down hard with a fine for the company bringing the lawsuit.
- danlugo92 3y agoIP, copyright and trademark are greed codified into law. Musicians should earn money from performances not bits. Painters should earn money from originals not reproductions. Photographers should earn money from shoots or originals (don't upload a high quality copy to the internet duh). Everything else is greed. One of the capital sins at that.
- bvoq 3y agoFree money for Swiss farmers is what I see here lol
- elp 3y agoI'm not a lawyer but I would have thought the fruit union food trademark would be in a different trademark class to Apple's computer trademark accoring to the WIPO Nice list. (https://www.wipo.int/classifications/nice/nclpub/en/fr/help/ https://www.wipo.int/classifications/nice/nclpub/en/fr/help/) Would this have any chance or are Apple just planning to bludgeon the other side with lawyers until they run out of money?
- tpmoney 3y agoThey're not bludgeoning anyone. They applied for a trademark registration for one of their marks, it was denied and they are appealing that denial. That's all that's going on. The rest of the article the hypothetical "what if"
- hanselot 3y agoWelcome to Earth: Where the NEWS is our barometer for determining how far we are from 1984. It's articles like these that invoke a sense of surreal prescience. I remember experiencing this same eerie feeling back when I was still trying to convince my employer that WFH would be unavoidable. The CXO (I put X because I can't remember what made up executive role they had at the time) still shrugged it off as "Just a flu". I remember sitting at a coffee shop at the beach one night with a close friend talking about the general state of things and how it felt crazy to know that soon things will be different forever in ways we can't begin to imagine. Back then I made a thread about it, though, given the channish nature of it, nobody here cared much for it either (you know, it was back in the early days, when "Hug an Asian" campaign was still taking place in the US, you know, the same time as the "fiery but mostly peaceful protests". This title has a similar feeling to it. The only difference is the enemy now is not some invisible force of nature, but humanmade horrors we impose upon ourselves. Anarchy as a concept always sounded insane, but look at what the people who have the most money in the world do with it. They don't give a fuck about the issues that are actually important. They will release a PR and keep up appearances while renting out server farms of bots to subdue critical opinion, and subvert any efforts to point these things out by creating fanatics (which is ironic, because fanaticism in today's world is a fully captured market - complete with branded interactions). Now we are the ones in need of fanatics. People like RMS, who called these things from the start. Yet we turn our backs on them and call them insane. We let companies smear and tarnish their image. We are at the point where we need a revolution, but we won't get one, because the last humans that haven't been enslaved by comfort are falling every day, and people are remarkably adept at being satisfied living in squalor if the previous iteration was just slightly worse. Its difficult to imagine how the world will look in this future where only a single school of thought is permitted. As a gay man from Africa, I apologise if my lived experiences come across as provocative. "Unfortunately, some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control ‘exactly what people think’…This is extremely dangerous to our democracy."
- as_bntd 3y agoHmm, are you calling out the clickbait of the article? I couldn’t fully understand.
- Runepika 3y agoGiven Apple's history with the Beatles, they should have some humility.
- tpmoney 3y agoTheir history with the Beatles is exactly what is at issue here. They’re filing a registration for the Apple Records logo, which they now own the right to as it pertains to use in trade in and around music and related media.
- k4rli 3y agoUnfortunate how regular and even IT people don't care how evil and anti-consumer this company is. And still getting more popular somehow.
- ChuckNorris89 3y ago"Hey, don't criticize my favorite trillion dollar corporation. I give them thousands of my dollars a year." - HN
- freedomben 3y agoAs someone who actively avoids products from companies with practices I find distasteful or disgusting, even though I would benefit from and enjoy those products, this fact is one of the most frustrating for me. "Vote with your dollars" is a powerful and highly effective strategy for making companies do the right things, but it only works if people are willing to make choices with consideration for morality/ethics/etc rather than selfishness (I don't necessarily mean that derogatorily, I mostly just mean "what's better for them"). For many things (such as cheap Chinese goods made by people in a labor camp) I think the economic realities of people having limited money are powerful (and legitimate) enough that it may not be reasonable to expect them to care, but with Apple products that's not the case. These are luxury products that are expensive, and the people who buy them could absolutely afford to buy an alternative. They just don't want to because they like or love the products and are willing to turn a blind eye about the companies practices (or invent/adopt crazy post-decision rationalisms churned out (or at least approved) from Apple's marketing department.
- b3lvedere 3y agoWhat am i going to do about it? Viva la revolution? Every time i vote, some weirdo does stupid things i did not vote for. Every time i pay, some weirdos do stupid things with the money. Every time i complain, nobody really does anything. Every time i'm taught, i'm taught money is everything above anything else. People with loads of money do really stupid things. I on the other hand, can't afford to care.
- m3kw9 3y agoI’m naming my company Applesauce
- jeppester 3y agoBetter start looking for a new word for common round fruits.
- denvrede 3y agoApple tried to do (kind of) the same stupid stuff a couple of years ago with a german company. They lost [0]. [0] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/markenstreit-cafe-apfelkind-besiegt-apple-1.1784653 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/markenstreit-cafe-apf...
- ilyt 3y agoIt would be nice if ONCE the court said "well, they were first, you need to stop using apple logo" That would shut them up from trying for a decade or two
- 6510 3y agoI realized things should move in the opposite direction when I was asked to do SEO on someones website. My response was hell no the product was: actual windows.
- delta_p_delta_x 3y ago> “We’re not looking to compete with Apple; we have no intention of going into the same field as them,” Mariéthoz says, adding that one of the biggest gripes the 8,000-odd apple farmers he represents had with the attempted fruit grab was that, “you know, Apple didn’t invent apples … We have been around for 111 years. And I think apples have been around for a few thousand more.” Heh, succinctly put. What is Apple Inc. going to go after next? Actual Macintosh apples[1]? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McIntosh_(apple) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McIntosh_(apple)
- fredoralive 3y agoThe particular apple in the trademark linked in the article[1] is the logo of Apple Corps / Apple Records. The settlement of the trademark dispute between Apple Corps and Apple Computer led to the trademarks being transferred to Apple Computer[2], and licensed back to Apple Corps. So in some ways, this is partly The Beatles' fault. [1] https://www3.wipo.int/madrid/monitor/en/showData.jsp?ID=ROM.1028240&DES=1 https://www3.wipo.int/madrid/monitor/en/showData.jsp?ID=ROM.... [2] Who promptly renamed themselves to just Apple.
- mcv 3y agoIf Apple's trademark conflicts with an older established trademark, shouldn't the older one win, and therefore invalidate Apple's trademark? I would strongly support a law that automatically invalidates trademarks when abused for silly nonsense like this. Give the big corps something to lose.
- dathinab 3y agoyes, through only the trademark in context of this specific field Trademarks are in general not for all fields, e.g. Apple for "computers" but not for literally selling apples or medizine. The problem is they can just abuse various laws to continuously sue a company in all kinds of fields going again and again into revision until the smaller company can't afford the legal fees anymore even if they win.
- fatfingerd 3y agoIf I were their competition, I would bank roll every organization's trademark feud with them in the hopes that one is as successful as Budvar.
- tpmoney 3y agoThe trademark isn't being abused though. There's no actual battle here. All that's going on is Apple is attempting to register one of two trademarks for the Apple Records logos that they have owned since 2007 and has been in trade usage since the 60's. One was granted, the other was provisionally denied, Apple is appealing that denial. This whole article is speculative nonsense that feels like a publicity stunt for the fruit union.
- hourago 3y ago> Following a protracted back-and-forth between both parties, the IPI partially granted Apple’s request last fall, saying that Apple could have rights relating to only some of the goods it wanted, citing a legal principle that considers generic images of common goods—like apples—to be in the public domain. In the spring, Apple launched an appeal. And the worst part is that Apple is wasting tax-payer money around the world with this kind of mitigations. While it avoids paying taxes, illegally for sure but difficult to prove, it wastes money that could have spend in public education or health care. Apple is so big that it becomes pure cartoonish evilness without even trying. It is time to break up all these monstrosities.
- BowBun 3y agoAgreed. The only mandate for a corporation is growth and revenue. These goals are at odds with the good of people and our planet, as we've seen countless times. Corporations consume most of our resources, produce the most waste, and damage _everything_ more compared to any individual. This won't change, because those with the power to do something benefit from the status quo and don't feel the damage they cause. Capitalism is a cancer that will consume everything.
- trumpeta 3y agoI hope Apple loses and is forced to change their logo i to something like a bitten iPhone. The other company make actual apples and for longer than Apple, so they should have the right of way.
- azinman2 3y agoDo other forms of government not rape the land, build industry, dump chemicals and pollutants, etc? Not sure the history of North Korea, China, Soviet Union, etc is an environmentalist paradise.
- malfist 3y agoThis is a form of "whataboutism" Just because some countries' governments are as bad as some corporations, does not mean either should get a free pass, or that corporations are not at fault for what they do.
- LittleNemoInS 3y agoFor the record, there is a place called Apples in Switzerland : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apples,_Vaud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apples,_Vaud
- kossTKR 3y agoI hope Apple loses the rights to use anything related to apples in the EU for wasting taxpayers money and time. They can fuck off just as all other large companies that tries to turn the world into a corporatocracy. EU's relatively large fines to the US tech sector has been a breath of fresh air, lets do more of that on a global basis.
- jeroenhd 3y agoI hope so too, but Switzerland isn't in the EU so I doubt the EU will take action unless the Swiss government invokes one of the many treaties and trade deals in response to this.
- perihelions 3y agoRelated? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4551943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4551943 ("Apple accused of ripping off famous Swiss clock design") (2012) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4770659 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4770659 ("Apple Pays Swiss Federal Railways $21 Million For Clock Icon") (2012)
- entriesfull 3y ago[dead]
- dathinab 3y agoProposal: Remove single common word trademarks, no one has a right to constraint general language usage like that. Even if we look at the law being able to do single common word trademarks where meant to be very restrictive like Apple "for computer hardware" but not Apple for selling literal Apples. The only problem is this laws never fully considered companies with massive horizontal expansion (e.g. computer hardware + OS + phone + App Store + Music lable + TV setup box + movie streaming + payment provider).
- x3874 3y ago...and couple it with the ridiculous stupid "one-word taken from regular language" brand naming decisions done by most startups and tech projects.
- hello_computer 3y agoDoes anyone ever get the feeling of creeping abomination? Or the nagging suspicion that we are neglecting a duty--to answer such affronts with examples written in blood? These machines grind people down, poison the land, and seek percentages that would make the most tyrannical feudal lord blush. Carroll Quigley had interesting things to say about corporations.
- anigbrowl 3y agoWired knows better. Apple is required by US trademark law to file pro forma objections to other similar logos because if they don't, they can be accused of constructive abandonment' of their own mark which will drastically limit their ability to seek recourse against genuine infringement. The problem here is not Apple, but the perverse incentives in US trademark jurisprudence.
- freedomben 3y agoDo you truthfully think that Apple the computer company is at risk in the US (or anywhere for that matter) of losing their trademark if they don't go after a union of fruit growers in a completely different market with a logo that is not in any way confusing to consumers? No doubt what you say is true for some infrigement cases and should be blamed on US trademark jurisprudence, and the US does badly need reform of IP laws, but blaming that for this move by Apple seems like a major stretch.
- tpmoney 3y agoApple isn't going after anyone. They're registering a trademark for the Apple Records logo in the trade domain of music and related media. That's it. There's no conflict here other than hypotheticals made up for the article.
- sk55 3y agoNails it. This needs to be upvoted more.
- zakki 3y agoApple is part of the problem here. This case is in Swiss which is not using US trademark law. The logo is clearly different, the products of both companies/org are different. But still Apple wants the other apples. I wish all Apples fanboys all over the world create an online petition to oppose this action.
- fimdomeio 3y agoI would love a plot twist where Apple is forced to change it's logo in Switzerland.
- throwaway81523 3y agoNobody remembers the famous story of William Tell shooting the Macbook Air with a bow and arrow? It has been Apple Computer all along.
- ACV001 3y agoAnd this is one of the problems with having a purely capitalist system. It kind of works, but to a certain degree. If you let the corporations grow uncontrollably, in the end they become so powerful that they control governments (and not the other way around as it should be). This is already happening, but we either don't know or don't care. Also, the patent system is broken. There are many examples of absurd patents and so called patent wars. It looks like the system is not well designed and is open to various exploits.
- GTP 3y agoThis really sounds like an April fool's joke.
- tpmoney 3y agoThat's because most of the article is make believe. The only battle is the one made up by the author and the union PR rep.
- jacquesm 3y agoWouldn't it be perfect if the judge in a turnabout rules that Apple loses the right to its logo in Switzerland. That would be very fair.
- denton-scratch 3y ago> the Granny Smith This apple is as ugly as sin (it's all lumpy) and it's too sour to eat (it's a cooking apple).
- aio2 3y agoI thought the title was a joke, but now that I read it... what the hell.
- friend_and_foe 3y agoYou don't get to name your company after an object that literally grows on trees and then start to restrict people's ability to depict such an object or use it in some way commercially. I hope Apple gets rightfully fucked on this.
- type0 3y ago"And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:4–5
- type0 3y agoWhat an April fools joke of a company, suitably funded as such, they should be forced to rename back to Apple computer and shut up already edit: But who are we kidding here, all publicity is good publicity
- gepardi 3y agoThis shit makes me wanna stop using Apple products
- matttproud 3y agoThurgau says, „GTFO.“
- michael9k 3y agoApple really is a awful company. You vote with your money! - don't vote Apple, FFS.