Patentlyapple, the site that celebrates Apple’s creative spirit, has recently published news about the Canadian Trademarks Office has granting Apple Inc. the apple trademark. However it’s not the bitten apple that appears on laptops but rather the one that appeared for the first time on Abbey Road’s vinyl.
The jubilant announcement has been given as a conclusion of an ultra decennial fight between Apple Inc. and the Apple Corporation, famous record label founded by the Beatles, but all this is not so jubilant and even less romantic.
Everything started in 1978 when Apple Corps, owner of the label Apple Records decided to file a lawsuit against the then Apple Computer for trademark forgery. After three years of stamped paper, the two contenders found an arrangement according to which the Apple Corps wouldn’t use their apple to mark computers anymore, while the Apple Inc. wouldn’t use their apple for musical products. The arrangement obviously also included a payout from Apple Inc..
The fight didn’t end then, though. In 1986 Apple Computer added to its computers devices for recording and reproducing sound, something that Apple Corps did not like, complaining that the 1981 arrangement had been violated.
Since the use of music was becoming an essential factor in the developing projects in Cupertino, a new arrangement was signed in 1991 that stated that Apple Inc. could sell tools or devices that would reproduce digital music but could not sell physical devices that would carry music. This new permission costed Apple Inc. circa 26 million dollars.
In 2003, Apple Corps filed another lawsuit against Apple Inc. considering the use of the trademark iTunes Music Store a new violation of the arrangements. The english Court agreed with Cupertino this time, but Apple Corps filed an appeal claiming to be ready to oppose the decision. The fight found a solution in 2007 with a secret arrangement, which details are not publicly known. The press, however, published an announcement stating that Apple Inc. apparently had paid 500 million dollars in order to possess the exclusive use of the apple.
The arrangement probably included something else. It’s no accident that since 2007 there seems to have been a sort of fellowship between Apple and Beatles, proved by the fact that all their repertory is now available on iTunes.
The fact is that since then, and certainly not now, the apple of Abbey Road has faded or, if we want to say it like this, it sailed the oceans.
Apple Inc. is today the owner not just of its apple, but also the whole invented by the Beatles. Whether their fans like this or not is another issue.