Apple Settles Trademark Opposition With PrePear Recipe App After The Latter Makes A Barely Perceptible Change In Logo

from the leaf-them-alone dept

Last summer, we discussed Apple opposing the trademark application for recipe app PrePear. While the tech company and a company that attempts to promote healthy eating aren't competing with one another, Apple argued that PrePear's logo was deceptively similar to its own. Here they are, side by side.

As we pointed out previously, it should be immediately obvious how dumb Apple's claims are. The two logos look nothing alike, have different color schemes and style types, and consist of totally different fruits. That PrePear has a pear in its logo and name only drives the point home further. Despite that, rather than backing down in shame, Apple expanded its attack to Canada, where it also opposed the trademark application there. PrePear had to lay off at least one of its handful of employees as a direct results of the costs associated with the opposition.

Which probably makes it all the more irritating to find that this has all now been settled such that Apple's demands for action are so frustratingly insignificant so as to make everyone wonder what the hell the point of all this was to begin with.

Six months later, the case is now settled, and it seems Apple didn’t actually have a pear-shaped problem after all — because Super Healthy Kids has agreed to change the shape of the leaf atop that pear, and Apple has agreed that’s good enough to let the trademark go forward.

And here is the change that PrePear agreed to.

You really do have to squint at the image to even make out what change was made, didn't you? The change is so minor that its only real use is in calling into question why Apple's lawyers pursued this at all. It's not as though this dispute wasn't painful for the PrePear folks. It was. There was cost, both in terms of money and its ability to retain its employees.

So how insulting must it be for Apple's big ask... to be barely altering the shape of a pear leaf?

Filed Under: apple, pear, trademark
Companies: apple, prepair

Apple Opposes Trademark Application For Recipe App's Pear-Shaped Logo

from the this-is-an-apple... dept

This is an apple. Some people might try to tell you that this is a banana. They might scream banana, banana, banana. Over and over and over again. They might put BANANA in all caps. You might even start to believe that this is a banana. But it's not. This is an apple.

Now, why would I subject our dear readers to one of the most insultingly patronizing, insipid advertisements ever run by a news organization, nevermind CNN? Because it does make at least one point relatively well: apples are not bananas. Logic holds, therefore, that if apples are not bananas, they are also quite unlikely to be grapes, or kiwis, or, say, pears.

And, yet, it appears that Apple, tech manufacturer most notable for making rounded corners, would like to attempt to animate CNN's commercial into some flavor of real life. See, Apple has decided to oppose a recipe app's logo because it consists of the shape of a pear. Prepear (groan) must have assumed that everyone would agree that we could tell fruits apart with the following logo.

In an Instagram post, the app's developer said Apple has objected to the firm's logo, claiming that the pear used is "too close" to the Apple logo and hurts the Apple brand.

The filing also cites brand confusion and dilution caused by "blurring."

According to the publication, the trademark was filed in 2017 and accepted by the US Trademark Office. It was only on the last day possible for objections to be filed that Apple did so.

This is a pear. Some enormous corporations might tell you morons in a hurry would think it was an apple. They might scream apple, apple, apple. Over and over and over again. They might put their apple next to your pear and insist they look alike. You might even start to believe that someone out there could mistake the pear for the apple. But they won't. Because a pear is not a fucking apple.

Also because the logos don't actually look anything alike. The color scheme is wildly different, the drawing lines totally distinct, and the style fully unique. There is literally no reason to think there is any chance of confusion here, not to mention that the companies are quite distinct in how the public perceives their product offerings.

But, of course, trademark bullying doesn't work on the merits. It works on the size of the legal war chest.

"To fight this it will cost tens of thousands of dollars," Prepear claims. "The CRAZY thing is that Apple has done this to dozens of other small business fruit logo companies, and many have chosen to abandon their logo or close doors."

Prepear has launched a change.org petition in an attempt to convince Apple to drop legal action as the process reaches the discovery phase, a particularly expensive part of the process. The company has only five members and says that fighting Apple on this matter could cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Yeah. And, unless Prepear gets some kind of rescue here, the most likely scenario is that it will need to change its logo. Losing all kinds of time and money in developing its branding. Or, it can risk bankrupting itself by fighting back.

Trademark bullying works. Again, not because of any legitimate legal or market concern. But purely as a matter of who can fight the fight and who cannot.

Filed Under: apple, likelihood of confusion, pear, trademark
Companies: apple, prepear