It is suprising what you can do with hundreds of lawyers and several congressmen.

It's especially surprising considering those congressmen should in theory have exactly 0 power over anything in the country where this lawsuit is taking place.

But honestly, Apple has bitten a bitter fruit on this one; there's no way they'll win this.

Well, they look like bunch of arrogant clueless idiots to whole world (I am seeing this story in various tabloids across Europe), if that was their mission then congrats to success.

It will also alienate non-trivial part of Swiss population, who are (rightly) patriotic to everything Swiss-made or grown. Few millions of direct losses in one of the wealthiest (albeit small) markets globally.

Is somebody from brexit team, ie Boris Johnson employed as consultant on this brilliantly executed move?

You are being slightly US centric there - while what you say may be true in the US - I don't think congressmen have much influence in the Swiss Courts.

Lawyer point still stands of course.

(Which simplifies down to "an obscene amount of money to throw at lawsuits".)

Trademark, not copyright. The weird thing is the expectation that trademarking an apple could be done in a way that is broad enough to cover all apple-based logos across all industries. I'm not sure how accurate this portrayal is given that Apple does indeed not sell fruit and the logo in question is likely pre-existing and does not actually resemble anything Apple has likely tried to file.

Trade dress or so-called "design patents" are a different matter (see Apple suing over every smartphone copying its design of "a slate of glass with a camera cut-out and maybe a button" or German Telekom pretty much holding the exclusive rights to a specific shade of magenta in tech-adjacent products).

The "infringing party" has existed and used this logo since a good 50 years before Apple Inc was founded.

I kinda hope the Swiss Apple company turns this around and sues Apple for trademark infringement, since they can prove using it for longer, and according to Apples own argument, the fact that they're in completely different industries apparently doesn't matter.

Would be fun to see Tim Cook announce the new "Banana iPhone" as a result of this suit getting turned around

First their isn’t a lawsuit, just someone concerned about hypotheticals.

Neither party is infringing until Apple sells actual fruit or the fruit company starts making tablets etc. The only point of contention is likely Apple making Movies and other entertainment which could create conflict if the fruit company wants to make a documentary at some point in the future.

It's a phone with appeal!

It's the logo for The Beatles' Apple Corps (whose trademarks now belong to Apple Inc as part of the settlement of the whole Apple v Apple thing about 15 years ago), so the fields it makes claims on[1] are mostly related to things like records and DVDs, so it seems odd if Apple Inc really are trying to use it to sue this association (are they actually suing?).

[1] https://www3.wipo.int/madrid/monitor/en/showData.jsp?ID=ROM....

I seem to have misread this part of the article:

> Wired notes that Apple first tried to secure the fruit trademark in Switzerland in 2017, when it filed an application for a black-and-white depiction of a Granny Smith apple. Indeed, it applied for an image of a whole apple rather than its trademark apple with a bite.

This seems to me like a (intentional?) misunderstanding of trademark law as having a trademark for the grayscale picture of an apple would merely entail that grayscale picture of an apple, not all other apples, nor even necessarily another grayscale picture of a different apple from a different perspective.

What I read into it is that Apple filed for a generic apple trademark rather than either of the pre-existing logos it already owned the trademarks for in other markets.

Given the source's likely bias, I'm inclined to believe the article is written in bad faith and there is no realistic threat to the actual fruit company.

> logo in question is likely pre-existing

If the logo exists longer than Apple does, isn't Apple the one commiting infringement?

Isn't this an open and shut case?

Nitpick: it's not copyright, trademarks are part of Industrial property[1] and have different legislation.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_property

One does not. If an image is created, it is copyrighted automatically. But copyright is not what this article is about. It’s about trademarks.

It is just this logo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps

WARNING, a download link: https://www.bvger.ch/dam/bvger/de/dokumente/2023/04/B-4493-2...