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Apple Loses Aussie Trademark Complaint Over "i" Name
CuteSteveJobs writes "Apple has been dealt a severe blow having been told that it no longer has a monopoly on the letter 'i' for product naming. IP Australia, the government body that oversees trademark applications, rejected Apple's complaint against a company selling 'DOPi' laptop bags. Last year Australian computer company Macpro Computers claimed that after 26 years of flying its own Macpro brand that Apple was 'trying to burn us out' with legal fees. This was after Apple released its own Macpro line 3½ years ago. Apple lost that complaint, but is appealing. Last year Apple went after supermarket Woolworths complaining their new logo which featured a 'W' fashioned into the shape of an apple. (Woolworths sells real apples.)"
This post has been taken to court by Apple due to violations regarding the iFirst.
So sue me!
How much apple fanbois want to believe in their beloved company and their jesus CEO, Apple is actually worse than even SCO.
I wish they lose all the legal battles everywhere against all.
iFuckApple
...but if Apple was as big as Microsoft is now and had the same legal attitude, the legal climate in computing would look even far worse than it does now.
The local grocery store in Silicon Valley has four organic apples in a hermetically sealed plastic box with a sticker on top to win a real skateboard for $3 USD. This is something that Steve Jobs would've come up with, although the skateboard would've been Steve Wozniak's idea.
They told the Australian court that the country would have to change its name to Australya.
It seems clear, avoiding the anti-Apple stance of the article and the summary, that Apple went after someone for infringing on "iPod", which is "DOPi" backwards. They didn't go after them for using iSomething. This looked like an infringement of their existing trademark, but they didn't win.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Any chance these fuckers can be declared vexatious litigants?
Most of these are ridiculous and meritless, and Apple is only hoping to crush their opponents under a torrent of legal fees.
when the ruling was headlined iDon'tThinkSo.
and said "iTold you so".
Ugh, I just died a little inside (Pun Allergy).
First AFACT (Australia's RIAA) lose and courts clearly state that ISP's are not responsible for policing their users now they have the audacity to claim Apple has no right to destroy other companies over vague allusions to product names or names they have been using for 20 years.
Preposterous I say, this simply cannot stand, as an Australian I demand that our legal system be fixed so that innocent mega-corporations can no longer be inconvenienced by our clearly erroneous laws.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Apple didn't invent the 'i' concept anyways. The 'i' comes from "Internet" because we called it the "iNet" back in the BBS days.
How many more years will slashdot have an off-by-one error on your Score in your profile?
There's an app for that.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Research is fun!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Maintaining_rights
Yet another trademark case. Are we sure this is just not a case of a big corporation suing just to cover it's ass because it can? If I had an international trademark and $35 billion in cash and short term investments, I would sue people even if I knew I would lose. With that sort of money, better safe than sorry.
Let's bash companies for factually correct reasons.
Really? A trademark on a small caps letter? like iSmall and SMALLi? then Google goes after gNames, MS goes after mORENames, etc.
[sarcasm]Luckily, IBM is IBM and not iBM[/sarcasm], and it was around first, etc. And ATI == ATi ? This article reminds me of madtv's iRack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw2nkoGLhrE
I wonder if, in the future, the Apple wikipedia page will get swapped out for the company's - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple and then it copyrights good health.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Powered by 26 letters, and therefore a maximum of 26 companies.
Frank Herbert, the author of "Dune" wrote a couple of novels set in a universe where lawyers who chose to fight a case literally had to fight it...and die if they lost. "Whipping Star" was one of them.
I think he was onto something. I, for one, would pay big money to see lawyers die.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
IF anyone has a right to complain, it's the Zulus. In kwaZulu (their language), an i- is prefixed to any loan word, and the following word is then capitalized. So radio in kwaZulu would be: iRadio. Looks familiar?
(Woolworths sells real apples.)
Quote from the article:
Woolworths' application includes a wide class for electrical goods and technology, putting it in direct competition with Apple should the retailer choose to brand computers, music players or other devices.
I guess the following bit from the article was just taken out of context:
''Based on this logic, they would have to take action against every fruit-seller.''
In a severe blow to food naming conventions Mother Nature has lost her bid to retain the name "Apple" for the fruit of the same name. In a compromise Apple is allowing Mother Nature to have their unused trademark iSlate for all apple type fruits. This is seen as a victory for the US and Mom's iSlate pie!
Companies (not just Apple) are somewhat obliged to defend their trademarks. To keep this IP companies must demonstrate that they are uniquely recognizable and associated with their products.
Aggressively going after anything that is close helps prevent dilution, and demonstrates that they are actively defending and using these trademarks.
Obviously Apple are wary of loosing it's brand image, so will contest anything remotely. If a precedent can be found where Apple have not defended their trade mark it provides other companies some leverage. Therefore this sends out a strong message to other companies and the legal system.
Copywriting an 'i' is going a bit far, especially as others have used it before.
When talking of trademarks, the Australian Woothworths company actually had absolutely nothing to do with the FW Woolworth company and its famous US and UK stores (and apparently stores in other countries that are still trading under the Woolworths brand). One of the founders of the Australian company, Ernest Robert Williams, called the company Woolworths as part of a dare, only to find that FW Woolworth had not trademarked the name in Australia, therefore the trademark was deemed valid.
This highlight the issue of trademarks. Even in a globalised society, a company cannot expect by implication that its trademark will automatically be protected across the world, without registering the trademark correctly. If it were, could Volkswagen sue Apple for the use of the "i" letter since the company first used the designation on the Golf GTi in 1975?
Perhaps somebody could trademark the word iDIOT, to prevent situations like this from occurring.
That there is a hamburger chain somewhere called Mac........ I wonder if they are next in the firing line.
iLitigiousBastards
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
... iLaughed.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
In other news, Apple successfully trademarked iAustralia, and is headed off to world court to demand that the country of Australia change its name because it infringes. Australian representatives cried fowl over Apple providing fully loaded iPods to judges and iPads for use during trial.
This is my sig.
If Apple were a person he would be a total douche
He'd also be wearing a turtleneck, have a starbucks double half-calf-frappa-moccha-chino, goatee, and thick black-rimmed glasses.
Oh yeah, and a liberal arts degree.
I hope you mean half CAF or CAFE. Whether he's a douche maybe up for debate but whether he takes half a cow (even a small one) in his coffee isn't!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Whatever happened to Apple being the goodguys? They had this image of being friendly and having a great product, but ever since they released the iPod its like it was the catalyst that turned them to the darkside.
...there was an 'i' in 'team'.
So he is an evil twin from an alternate universe?
Apple is iEvil.
I'm trademarking "Phoghat because the band "Foghat", said they'd see me in court
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
Apple could get them on provocation.
A "severe blow". Puhlease. Apple could care less about this. Sure, they will go to court to get as much trademark leeway as they can, but nobody in Cupertino is sweating the supposed loss of "i".