Crunch time in a battle of the Apples

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Crunch time in a battle of the Apples
By Shlomi Isaacson
The Journal
18 May 2006

THE recently concluded court case fought between Apple Corps and Apple Computer related to a 15-year-old agreement between the two high profile companies.

Its origins however, actually date back a decade earlier than that, to 1981, the year after John Lennon’s assassination in New York and only five years following the founding of Apple Computers by its current chief executive, Steve Jobs.

The conclusion of the first clash between the two companies over the use of the Apple logo, resulted in an $80,000 settlement under which Apple Computer agreed to steer clear of the music business.

The 1991 trade mark agreement involved a $26.5m payment by Apple Computers.

It provided that Apple Corps got to keep exclusive rights to use the Apple mark for musical content, whilst Apple Computer was sanctioned use of the mark for “goods and services….used to reproduce, run, play or otherwise deliver such content.”

As Apple Corps QC, Geoffrey Vos succinctly put it during the recent case;

“The agreement was meant to say: ‘We do music and you do computer delivery systems.”

Apple Corps argued that the application of the Apple Computer company logo to the iTunes musical download store was a breach of this agreement.

The judge in the case, Mr Justice Anthony Mann concluded that the use of the logo by Apple Computer was in connection with the online store, “a form of electronic shop” as he put it – not the music itself.
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