Slashdot Mirror
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.
...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
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.
And I would call you an asshole who's abusing the system, and costing other people the money that they take home to feed their families and pay rent.
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.
uHurt :) iBad
Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
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!
i hope your not a CEO of any company...
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
On that I have to disagree. The approach is short-sighted as there is at least one other cost you are not considering -- "good will." Apple is burning its public image with these sorts of abusive legal actions.
Makes me wonder if Apple will next go after Apple Records.
The Beatles used them near the end as their label
The label has an Apple on it
Things that make you go Hmmm
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
You mean sosumi...
The approach is short-sighted as there is at least one other cost you are not considering -- "good will." Apple is burning its public image with these sorts of abusive legal actions.
I guess they learned that good will doesn't matter all that much when it comes to the bottom line. Microsoft has for years burned good will, buried it, danced on it's grave and then salted the earth where it used to grow and they are still the biggest software company around.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
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
from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer
On 5 February 2007, Apple Inc. and Apple Corps announced a settlement of their trademark dispute under which Apple Inc. will own all of the trademarks related to "Apple" and will license certain of those trademarks back to Apple Corps for their continued use. The settlement ends the ongoing trademark lawsuit between the companies, with each party bearing its own legal costs, and Apple Inc. will continue using its name and logos on iTunes. The settlement includes terms that are confidential, although newspaper accounts at the time stated that Apple Computer was buying out Apple Corps' trademark rights for a total of $500 million U.S..
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
It has no choice. If they do not bring a suit (even one that may lose) later trademark cases that are more blatant have stronger grounds to argue that the term is now generic since Apple hasn't been protecting it.
No one said that trademark law was sensible.
The Woolworths one was about a blanket trademark - Woolworths wanted a blanket trademark for their new logo (ie, to cover every sector of business, including computing) and Apple sued to exclude them from that section due to infringement. It's highly unlikely Woolworths will ever release a computer product, but again - you have to do these things in advance. If you do nothing (ie, "goodwill" then that can be used against you as "you don;t care if we use this name... it never bothered you before".
It would be better if there was some other way to lodge a complaint about a name that didn't involve a court, so that there wouldn't have to be a trademark suit in clear cases like this that still have a fringe connection (eg, iPod backwards, made for mp3 players) so that Apple's (or anyone's) trademark protection requirement is met without them having to sue.
...there was an 'i' in 'team'.
Microsoft has for years burned good will, buried it, danced on it's grave and then salted the earth where it used to grow and they are still the biggest software company around.
I totally agree with your statement, but IMHO the most important word here is STILL. One of these days, M$ will slip, and then they'll need all the good will they dilapidated. In the future, people will be making lists like this "Ashton Tate, WordPerfect, SCO... Microsoft...". They have been stretching the rubber band for 40 years, You don't need to be Nostradamus to see what's coming.
As for Apple, Google and the rest, yes, they'll probably end also being part of that list.
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.
Trust me on this one, it was just image. I knew Apple from back in the Apple I days, and Jobs was a dick even then, a hopped up salesman at best. Wozniak I respected ... to have designed and prototyped the Apple ][, Monitor ROM and floppy disk controller at his age was remarkable. Close to genius-level work, I'd say.
For all its flaws and warts (and it has many) Microsoft has put forth more effort to support its customers over the years than Apple ever has. I agree with you, they've seemed like bigger dicks since the iPod came out, but probably having to deal with the music industry has just amplified their existing negative vibes.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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".