Apple Is On A Quest To Trademark All Pictures Of Apples

In the next logical step of corporations, introducing and intruding in every aspect of our public and private lives, Apple is attempting to trademark depictions of actual apples. Not just their iconic logo that you just saw on the screen, which shows an apple with a bite mark in it, but regular plain old apples. Now, the oldest union of fruit farmers in Switzerland, the fruit union Swiss, are

concerned that Apple's latest attempts to trademark apples is going to impact the logo that they've been using for 111 years. Speaking of wired, we have a hard time understanding this because it's not like they're trying to protect their bit-napple fruit union Swiss director Jimmy Mariotha says, referring to the company's iconic logo. Their objective here is really to own the rights to an actual apple, which for

us is something that is really almost universal. That should be free for everyone to use. And if you're wondering how this is going to impact them specifically, let's pull up a picture of their logo. Here it is. It is an apple with the symbol from the Swiss flag right in the middle. And the logo makes perfect sense because the apple is one of Switzerland's most common

fruits. And this is a union representing fruit farmers, but the Swiss aren't actually not apples first trademark victims. In fact, Japan, Turkey, Israel, and Armenia have already given the tech giant the trademark rights to apples generally. And once Apple has those trademark rights, they enforce, or it enforces its trademark vigorously. As an example, over the past few years, Apple has pursued a meal prepping app with

a parallel go, a singer songwriter named Frankie Pineapple, a German cycling route, a pair of stationary makers, and a school district among others. The company fought a decades-long battle with the Beals Music Label Apple Core, which was finally resolved in 2007. Now, Apple's been trying to secure this trademark in Switzerland, and it's early and apparently for quite some time. And it's had some moderate success, but

also had to face a couple setbacks. According to Wired, Apple's attempts to secure the trademark in Switzerland go as far back as 2017, when Apple submitted an application to the Swiss Institute of Intellectual Property, IPI, requesting the IP rights for realistic black and white depiction of an Apple variety known as the Granny Smith, the generic Green Apple. The request covered an extensive list of potential users

following a protracted back and forth between both parties. The IPI partially granted Apple's request last fall, saying that Apple could have rights relating to only some of the goods it wanted, citing a legal principle that considers generic images of common goods like apples to be in the public domain. In the spring, Apple launched an appeal. Of course, we don't know the results of that appeal yet.

It's still pending, but they are fighting for the right to own the trademark. Now, I have some good news for the Swiss Fruit Farmers Union. At least it seems like it on the face of it. Irene Calboli, a professor at Texas A&M University School of Law, and a fellow at the University of Geneva, says that in Switzerland, anyone who can prove prior history of using a

disputed sign as protection in a potential trademark dispute, that means it might be hard for Apple to enforce its trademark on organizations that have used the Apple symbol for decades. But whether or not Apple can enforce its trademark on small companies and organizations through the legal system might not even matter if they can strong arm those companies outside of court. However, Calboli says big rich companies

can often scare smaller businesses into compliance. The system is very much skewed towards those who have more money. She says, just a threat of expensive litigation against a huge company like Apple can be enough to intimidate people and stop them from doing something that might be perfectly lawful. And I mean, this is David Vs. Goliath's story where Goliath almost always wins, as particularly we see here

in IP law in the United States, the company that can afford to prolong litigation, is the company that's going to win even if they have no legal basis to do so. Well, you said, you said tomato, I say tomato, you say real apples, I say, Apple owns them. How do I like these apples? I kind of like them. So here's my counterpoints, that counterpoints, but I'm

going to go along with their legal principles. So everyone's been making was an Anna Kasperian here will do an hour together and our fans have dubbed that the banana hour, Ben and Anna. Okay. Sorry, we now own all bananas. Okay. And we will enforce that copyright on everyone, including the bananas themselves. And we will seize them. Not only that, the show is called a young Turks.

We now own all young Turks. As long as we're being absurd, why don't we just claim every one? Like look guys, here's how you can, how Switzerland should have adjudicated this case. There's two factors here that end this case. Immediately. Let's bring up the logo again for that market, the Schweizer of St. Vance, Fruit Union. Okay. Okay. That doesn't look like anything like Apple's logo. No.

Done. Case is already over. Number two, given around 111 years, as Ray Akes explained to you guys. Apple hasn't been around 111 years. Done over. Next. Is next. Okay. Why are we still having this conversation? Okay. And the reason we're still having this conversation is because of massive corporate power across the world. It's not just in America. They go and have these team of lawyers and

look are there legitimate cases? Sure. Sometimes cheesy folks across the world. Like have I seen us as star books in Turkey. That's a coffee shop. With a mermaid with a slightly different look. Yes, I have. Should they force their patent and copyrights? They're sure. They should. There's a real reason for those laws. Is it overreach to claim all the apples in the world? Yes. Yes. Of

course it's overreach. And look, there's got to be some sort of consequences for furthest lawsuits, especially if they're brought by a giant corporation. I don't know how you make that distinction in law. And you know, you have to work on them. And I bill, et cetera. But no, don't go around bullying everybody trying to claim copyright to every Apple in existence. That's absurd. And everybody should

know that. But I will give them a little bit of credit, Ray. They at least brought Turkey and Armenia together. Not for a great cause, but the bow down to corporate power. But it is the only thing that has brought Turkey and Armenia together. Other than I run it with TYT. I'll just say I was a TA for property law in my last two years of

law school. I'm an award winning legal mind. I got a Cali Award for property law. Yes, despite me having very, despite having very, you know, deferred beliefs about property than a lot of legal scholars. That being said, I used to use as an example for my students dumb Starbucks from the show Nathan for you where he there was a failing coffee shop in his, you know,

suggestion for them was just to call themselves dumb Starbucks and put dumb in front of every single drink. But the menu was exactly the same as Starbucks. The logo was exactly the same as Starbucks that thumb in front of it. And that was my example of like, this is not fair. This is a violation of any type of intellectual property law. You can imagine versus the

logo from the poor farmers union. That they've been using for 111 freaking years. The idea, you're right. It doesn't look anything like the Apple logo. It's so absurd that they might assert their trademark over them. Okay, even though this is so obvious. It's so frustrating that these cases haven't dismissed immediately. Because they're so over the top absurd. But I'm going to give you one needless example

anyway. One more example. So there was a restaurant in Miami when I lived there. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist anymore. And I went there and I'm like, God, this looks identical to the Cheesecake Factory menu, right? And it turned out that the owner was Turkish. Okay. So I started talking to him in Turkish. And I said, brother, this kind of looks like the Cheesecake Factory

menu. And he said, oh yeah, yeah. We got one of the cooks from the Cheesecake Factory and totally copied it. I'm like, you know, you can't do that, right? He's like, yeah, we'll be all right. Okay. And by the way, later, they say, Cheesecake Factory. Cheesecake Factory caught him, okay, and sued, and they settled, okay? So that's wrong. You cannot do it. But if Cheesecake Factory

then sued everyone who makes Cheesecakes or factories, that would be absurd. Was the food good at least? It was delicious. I went all the time. You know why it was delicious? Because they copied the Cheesecake Factory. Right. Thanks for watching the Young Turks. Really appreciated. Another way to show support is through YouTube memberships. You'll get to interact with us more. There's live chat emojis, badges. You

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