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The Apple Name Game
Apple Core sent a link to an article running in Australia about Apple fighting for their name with some little telco called Apple Communications. Well, they were called that. Now they are Green.
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I seem to remember Apple has been through a name fight before...
They are one of the VERY few companies offering unlimited broadband downloads in a country full of 3 Gig caps.
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slashdot needs a google topic catagory
Actually the connection is both are in the IT industry and in one industry its bad to have the same name as another company. It actually is possible for people to mistake the telecom company for the computer manufacturer.
Not to mention that the telecom would indirectly benefit from Apple Inc's advertising...etc.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
They may neglect to mention a certain Apple Records that they had to pay off to stay in business. From what I have been told, the very famous MacOS sound "SoSuMi" was derived from that experience. "So sue me."
And how quickly they turn the other cheek.
They used to be:
Applecomm.com.au, but on the frontpage there is an announcement regarding the settlement and the change to iGreen.
I can certainly forgive them for their apples being sour.
The only upside of this is if Apple Communications would have become an ISP (not entirely far fetched). The name Apple Internet Access or Apple Broadband could certainly be too close for comfort, and would enjoy at least a small amount of probable name association; the very thing these sorts of suits are trying to protect against. It's a tough situation on either end of the boot.
--jay
I know the attorneys, and the company that employs them, look like assholes when they zealously protect the name -- a reason I couldn't do this kind of work -- but they have to or they'll get screwed in court by someone else. Look at the MS problem with Windows -- Lindows et al. with delicious irony retaliate by attacking all Windows branding. Note that one step in their argument was to submit a list of companies using Window in their name apparently without interference from MS. MS may have blown it, a major catastrophe for them. (Personally I think the name Lindows walks the line of -- a lot of "ordinary people" might reasonably think it's a Microsoft product.) The same could happen to Apple -- every company named Apple could be a nail in the coffin of the trademark.
As someone here has probably mentioned, Apple had early problems with Apple Records, Lennon's company IIRC, and settled by promising not to get into the music business. They got sued when they started doing MIDI; I'm not sure how that was resolved.
So, they do come across as assholes, and maybe they are, but they are trying to protect legitimate business interests, not just flex corporate muscle. Pretty much every case looks like intemperate bullshit, but that's how it works because a trademark dies the death of a thousand cuts. Look at cellophane and aspirin and the other famous lapsed trademarks. A protected trademark, unlike copyright, is immortal.
There are some things about being an 800 lb. gorilla that just have to smell bad. I don't like it -- just check out the sprawling list of reserved names, some not even in use on the Apple site. Microsoft much have an even longer one.
Anything you don't sue can and will be used against you in a court of law. Branding does protect the consumer, and keeps ripoff artists at bay, but I would welcome a solution to these petty skirmishes. Perhaps it would make sense to license the name out under the right circumstances of honest overlap, without waiver of Apple's primary rights. I don't know whether this is done, though I can imagine some pitfalls.
No it didn't. It was from the Apple Records case.
What you are thinking of is when Apple used "Carl Sagan" as an internal code word for a product and the real Carl Sagan sued (or threatened to sue). So they changed it to "BHA" which stood for "Butt Head Astronomer". Sagan then sued (or at least threatened to sue) again and then finally changed it to LAW "Lawyers are Wimps."
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
It is not a generic term and MS already has a trademark for the name.
I think there is a fundamental misconception for what generic means. A term can be generic for one type of goods but not generic for another type. For example, apple is generic with respect to produce, but not with respect to computers. Window is generic with respect to transparent glass, but not with respect to operating systems.
A term is generic if people use the term to refer to an item. For example, people sometimes attempt to use Xerox to refer to photocopying or FedEx to refer to overnight delivery. Those companies thus try very hard to make sure people don't use those names in that manner. Nobody uses the term Windows to generically refer to software. So those who say that the term is generic are mistaken. It is true that windows are a common feature in operating systems, but it is not a common name in operating systems.
No I am not an IP lawyer
We can tell.