The common refrain is that trademarks must be defended even in far fetched cases, else you'll automatically lose them.

I'm curious how many people protest that facet of law, given the many protests against patents.

Its far from automatic. In any case, all they'd have to do is send a polite letter to the little store granting them the perpetual right to be similar in the way that the currently are. As SJ said, "not that big a deal".

Compared to patents, trademarks do not really generate that much abuse of the law. On top of that everybody seems to agree that their benefits (i.e. prevent businesses from confusing consumers) totally outweigh downsides, which is not the case with patents. The rare cases of abuse actually generate quite a lot of bad publicity.

Playing devil's advocate here...

Does the general public really care about a company bullying other companies legally? Are consumers really not going to buy a specific product because the company is suing an insignificant company? And if so, how much is impacting sales? I realize there probably is not enough substantial evidence to support a rational conclusion to this question. However, considering EVERY large company does this, I don't see how this is going to harm the bottom line.

Is it unethical? That's another question.

ps- I do agree with most people here that these legal arguments are getting quite asinine.

Apple's phenomenal dickery is making me seriously consider divesting myself of their products, so yes. Then again, I'm not the typical consumer. Their rectalitude certainly doesn't seem to have hurt their sales any.

There is certainly the fans that will buy anything Apple because it's Apple regardless of what Apple does. That being said, like you, I'm not sure if I can bring myself to support undoubtedly one of the most unethical companies in the world. They haven't have a big product release since the Samsung case but any sales lost were certainly more than made up for with their patent winnings.

> one of the most unethical companies in the world.

Less ethical than Total? Philip Morris? Freeport-McMoRan? Halliburton? Monsanto?

Save the hyperbole. Companies sue one another.

Less ethical doesn't mean least ethical. One of the most unethical doesn't mean the most unethical.

Thanks, this is exactly what I was intending to convey. Never did I say the Apple lawsuits were my justification for thinking Apple is unethical. I simply alluded that recent patent bullying is one of the bigger public outcries against the company and we are yet to see how consumers will react to it. We are all in agreement that it won't noticeably hurt their sales, but it is also further swaying those without brand loyalty to the company.

I realize if I kept tabs on all large corporation's ethics, in all likelihood I would find myself unable to purchase anything from someone respectable. That being said, despite becoming a large company being synonymous with it losing it's innocence, it doesn't mean that they all have to become porn stars.

Anyone who thinks my opinion is cheery picked or hyperbole doesn't follow the sweatshop labor, environmental destruction, discrimination against customers, etc in Apple's last few years alone. Using other unethical companies (none of whom were tech might I add) to justify their atrocious actions is borderline retarded. We might as well just let murders off the hook because those serial killers are so much worse in comparison, right?

As a consumer, all I'm trying to do is support companies that act the best, even if that means picking whomever is the least undesirable.

Blackwater? Chiquita? Coca-Cola? De Beers? And between the both of us we've barely gone past the ones that commit outright murder.

  > undoubtedly one of the most unethical companies
  > in the world

Oh please. I now people are irrational, but we can be wiser as to delude ourselves that some company is ethical and other is not based on cherry-picked tidbits.

> I'm not sure if I can bring myself to support undoubtedly one of the most unethical companies in the world.

Really? I wish Apple was one of the most unethical companies in the world, because if suing some companies over patents was grounds for that, then the world would seriously be a much better place.

In the real world, I probably wouldn't rate Apple in the top thousand unethical companies... Real unethical companies are ones like James Hardie [1], which manufactured building materials from asbestos that gave thousands of people mesothelioma, despite knowing the health effects for about 10 years.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hardie

Being unethical or not is based on moral values and Apple did breach the moral code of conduct in their recent lawsuits by acting vigorously bullish but they did nothing wrong(at least not legally). But what James Hardie did was borderline illegal so they are two different things.

The difference I would toss out there is that what Hardie did was not unethical, it was criminal.

I find it hilarious that this question can even be asked in regard to Apple.

Apple benefits enormously from the public perception of "the Apple brand", and that translates directly into massive profits for Apple's bottom line. If the public became more Apple skeptical it would put a dent in their business to the tune of billions. Look at Microsoft and the difficulties they are still having due to being saddled as an uncool company.

Edit: People are still proud to show their support for Apple. How would that change if people changed their perception of Apple? Apple is one of the largest and most profitable companies in the history of Earth. And they are guilty of no small number of abuses and crimes, against their workers, against their competitors, against their users. How would Apple's business fare if people began perceiving Apple in the same way they perceived Exxon?

I find it hard to believe that people will go to a grocery store and expect to find brushed-metal fruit with a shiny touchscreen. These are wildly different industries.

Then again, being Exxon hasn't harmed Exxon's bottomline. Granted, consumer goods might be a whole different ballgame.

Exxon's marketplace is largely commoditized, which is part of the reason they act how they do, Apple's marketplace could not be more different.

In particular, oil is a fungible commodity. Fungibility is the key factor here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungibility

Personal computers aren't a commodity?

Nope. A barrel of oil from Exxon is undistinguishable from any other barrel of oil traded at the exchanges. This is not the case with say, Thinkpads vs Macbooks.

Quote wikipedia: "A commodity has full or partial fungibility; that is, the market treats it as equivalent or nearly so no matter who produces it." So nope, definitely not (yet) the case with computers.

Yet oddly for more the case with "the cloud"

I am hopeful that openstack will give me a large range of providers I can use with the same Apis - and that my app design will be sufficient that even the remaining non fungible parts of a hosted computer (OS, connectivity, size of data stored) will be mitigated

I am not sure if it's a good or a bad thing but pretty soon every computer other than the ones I carry will be commodities

I don't know about the general public, but I don't buy Apple products for a variety of reasons, this being one of them.

It matters to me, but then again, I'm one of those very rare "enlightened consumers" who actually gives a crap where my money is going.

For every one of me there's probably a thousand Apple fanboys who wouldn't mind Apple building land mines for for fun and profit.

The only reason I'm using an android device now is because I don't want to fund Apples patent crusade. I think the iPhone is light years better and more usable and more polished than Android, but I don't support their policies, so I vote with my wallet. I realize I'm an outlier in this, but that's just the way it is.

But you will fund Googles, Samsungs, and who knows about the component suppliers.

Taking a political stand via device choice is a bit naive.

Google is on a patent crusade? I have a Samsung phone? Thems news to me!

Also - Apple is almost non-existant in Poland except for iphone.

I don't have data, but from anegdotal evidence Mac OS-X has smaller desktop market share than Linux here.

So Poland is unimportant market for Apple.

There you go with some data for desktop OSes. Slightly more OSX users than Linux though. Still not a significant amount. http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-PL-monthly-201108-201208-bar

Thanks. So I was wrong again.

BTW the graph with time shows that there was reversal - in 2008 Linux had 1.8 % and OSX 1.27 %, now OSX has 1.53 % and Linux 1.06 %.

Makes me sad.

Linux has way too little market share on the desktop anyway. Especially when considering that it does all the things the average consumer wants, ever since hardware compatibility problems have virtually gone away. I think the main reason is actually, that "the computer" with its OS and everything is one product to the average consumer. They buy a PC, it runs Windows. They buy a Mac, it runs OSX. And it usually stays that way. Pre-installed Linux was never really given a proper chance.

No, consumers don't care at all. That is why Apple is still in business after the all the stories about exploitation in manufacturing. If customers cared at all, that would put them off for sure. But no. So clearly, customers don't care as long as they get their pretty toys at prices they are willing to pay.

Not an Apple thing either. Don't know why Apple get the flack when almost every one else is at it in one way or another, and "we" happily lap up their product.

If people actually cared enough not to give Apple money, the likes of Apple would change. They would have to.

All similar manufacturers have the same exploitation in manufacturing. Apple copped a beating over it essentially because they market to expections of quality and high ethics.

> And if so, how much is impacting sales?

If it's impacting sales, it's positively impacting them, since sales have been growing year after year together with the legal attacks. People may still be seeing Apple as the Underdog? :)

Upvote to counter the downvote. I see no reason for downvoting here. People do like to see Apple as the underdog, even though some part of them realizes that headlines like "Apple Now Biggest-Ever U.S. Company" (WSJ) kind of contradict with the underdogginess.

Actually, they're quite a phenomenon. It's rare to witness an actual fanbase with a company. With this one, the fanbase is extraordinarily big and extremly devoted. This goes far beyond the usual fanboy-ism. People actually love their Apple products [1].

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/opinion/you-love-your-ipho...