Imagine running a company for more than a century and then being forced to change your brand's identity, i.e., its logo. That is exactly what a 111-year-old company named 'The Fruit Union Suisse' is facing currently.
For most of its history, it has had as its symbol a red apple with a white cross¡ªthe Swiss national flag superimposed on one of its most common fruits. But the company, which is the?oldest and largest?fruit?farmer¡¯s organisation in Switzerland, worries it might have to change its?logo.
This is because?Apple, the tech giant that is the world's first company to hit a $3 trillion market cap, is trying to gain intellectual property rights over depictions of apples, the fruit.??
¡°We have a hard time understanding this, because it¡¯s not like they¡¯re trying to protect their bitten apple,¡± Fruit Union Suisse director Jimmy Mari¨¦thoz says, referring to the company¡¯s iconic logo. ¡°Their objective here is really to own the rights to an actual apple, which, for us, is something that is really almost universal ¡ that should be free for everyone to use.¡±
While the case has left Swiss fruit growers puzzled, it¡¯s part of a global trend. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization¡¯s records, Apple has made similar requests to dozens of IP authorities around the world, with varying degrees of success. Authorities in Japan, Turkey, Israel, and Armenia have acquiesced.?
Apple¡¯s quest to own the IP rights to something as generic as a fruit speaks to the dynamics of a flourishing global IP rights industry, which encourages companies to compete obsessively over trademarks they don¡¯t really need, as per a Wired report.
Apple's attempts to secure the trademark in Switzerland go as far back as 2017, when the Cupertino, California¨Cbased giant submitted an application to the Swiss Institute of Intellectual Property (IPI) requesting the IP rights for a realistic, black-and-white depiction of an apple variety known as the Granny Smith¡ªthe generic green apple.?
The request covered an extensive list of potential uses¡ªmostly on electronic, digital, and audiovisual consumer goods and hardware. Following a protracted back-and-forth between both parties, the IPI partially granted Apple¡¯s request last fall, saying that Apple could have rights relating to only some of the goods it wanted, citing a legal principle that considers generic images of common goods¡ªlike apples¡ªto be in the public domain. In the spring, Apple launched an appeal.
The case is now moving through the courts deals only with the goods for which the IPI refused the trademark, which an IPI official said could not be disclosed without consent from Apple, because the proceedings are still pending, but which include common uses such as audiovisual footage ¡°meant for television and other transmission.¡±
Mari¨¦thoz says that the Fruit Union is concerned because there is no clarity on what uses of the apple shape Apple will try to protect and because the company has been very aggressive in pursuing things that it perceives as infringements on its trademarks. ¡°We¡¯re concerned that any visual representation of an apple¡ªso anything that¡¯s audiovisual or linked to new technologies or to media¡ªcould be potentially impacted. That would be a very, very big restriction for us,¡± he said. ¡°Theoretically, we could be entering slippery territory every time we advertise with an apple.¡±
Over the past few years, Apple has pursued a meal-prepping app with a pear logo, a singer-songwriter named Frankie Pineapple, a German cycling route, a pair of stationery makers, and a school district, among others. The company fought a decades-long battle with the Beatles¡¯ music label, Apple Corps, which was finally resolved in 2007.
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An investigation in 2022 by the Tech Transparency Project, a nonprofit that researches Big Tech, found that between 2019 and 2021,?Apple?filed more trademark oppositions¡ªattempts to enforce its IP over other companies¡ªthan Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, and Google combined.?Those companies also have trademarked common terms such as "Windows" or "Prime."
Apple has precedent in Switzerland. In 2010, the nearly $3 trillion-dollar company got a small Swiss grocers¡¯ cooperative to enter into an out-of-court agreement declaring it would never add a bite mark to its logo¡ªa bright red apple inside a shopping caddy¡ªsomething that, according to the cooperative¡¯s president at the time, was "never planned."
Things haven¡¯t always gone Apple¡¯s way, though. In 2012, Swiss Federal Railways won a $21 million settlement after it showed Apple had copied the design of the Swiss railway clock. In 2015, an existing "Apple" trademark in Switzerland, obtained by a watchmaker in the 1980s, forced Apple to delay the launch of its popular Apple Watch in the country, the report mentioned.
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Apple?is asking only for rights over a black-and-white image of an apple.?
However, according to Cyrill Rigamonti, who teaches intellectual property law at the University of Bern, that might actually give it the broadest possible protection over the shape, allowing it to go after depictions in a wide range of colours. "Then the question [would be], is there a likelihood of confusion with regard to some other not-exactly-identical apple?" he says, as per the report.
For the Swiss apple growers, "millions" are at stake if they have to rebrand following a decision.?"We¡¯re not looking to compete with Apple; we have no intention of going into the same field as them," Mari¨¦thoz says, adding that one of the biggest gripes the 8,000-odd apple farmers he represents had with the attempted fruit grab was that, "you know, Apple didn¡¯t invent apples ¡ We have been around for 111 years. And I think apples have been around for a few thousand more."
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