you're right, I'm sorry, I'm confusing the two. I'm just not too fond of the whole owning-something-intangible concept, i.e. patents on processes or trademarks on words. in my distaste for them, I guess I mixed them up.

but yes, a trademark is representative of a brand, and it's important for companies to control their brand image, especially companies who are constantly under surveillance by the media like Apple.

Understandable. I don't have anything nice to say about software patents either.