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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.
...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.
when the ruling was headlined iDon'tThinkSo.
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
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.
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.
... iLaughed.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.