For many many years there has been an ongoing dispute between Apple and infamous British rockers The Beatles. In 1968 The Beatles founded the Apple Corps Conglomerate – a multi-armed multimedia corporation and when the other, slightly more famous Apple came along, there were some serious trademark issues.
In 1981, the dispute seemed to have been settled, Apple (of the iPhone) paid Apple Corps (of the Liverpudlian musicians) $80,000 and promised never to step foot into the music business.
As you all know, Apple didn’t exactly stick to their word on that one as 2001 saw the launch of iTunes and the iPod, so the dispute flared up once again.
In 2007 it seemed as though the two organizations had managed to make peace once again, when Apple (who had become much more powerful by this point) took control of all trademarks related to “Apple” and this included the Apple Corps’ granny smith apple logo. They agreed to license it back to Apple Corps for their continued use. How very sweet of them? See, sometimes it is possible to share…Or maybe not!
Today though, the Canadian IP Office has disclosed that The Beatles’ infamous recording label is now an Apple, Inc. registered trademark.
I can just envisage a court room of suited and booted lawyers yelling at one another, “that’s my apple”, “nope, you can’t have it, it looks too much like my apple”…The mind boggles!
God protect anyone who wants to use an apple for anything other than to be one of their 5-a-day!!
Source: Patently Apple
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