Apple vs Woolworths logo war
Do you think the new Countdown/Woolies “W” logo looks like an apple? Go figure. Apple certainly thinks so, and has launched a legal campaign to stop the Australian company from using it.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported Woolworths filed a trademark application last August and will plaster the logo on all its retail products, including electrical goods and technology. Woolworths currently brands credit cards and mobile phones, so computers could be the next step, and that would be direct competition to Apple.
It’s no surprise that Apple lawyers are vigilant when it comes to trademark protection. Apple is currently taking action against a music festival promoter, Poison Apple, which wants to trademark a logo of an apple with a bite out of it atop crossed bones, and Foxtel, whose branding for a new porn channel, Adults Only, is an apple together with an arrow and a devil’s tail.
In 2007 Apple and The Beatles’ parent company Apple Corps came to an agreement after 30 years of bitching, which entitled Apple to own all trademarks using the name “Apple” and to license certain trademarks back to Apple Corps for their continued use.
Lucky ENZA has a pear behind its apple logo, otherwise Apple would have its guts for garters.
pooh bear
October 9, 2009
not close enough.
mark
October 9, 2009
I’d always wondered how Billy Apple had managed to stay away from Apple’s legal team…perhaps because it’s art and he has been using it since 1962??
Duncan Stuart
October 9, 2009
This is just sick. There’s something wrong when a company can take an everyday object or colour and claim it – and, apparently, all variants – as now theirs. If computer Apple had come up with something more unique in the first place, then it would be more protectable.
I think I’ll use a full stop as my new logo and then sue everybody who completes a sentence.
Gerry
October 12, 2009
I like your thinking Duncan