Apple sues Polish grocery store over the letter A
thenextweb.com
thenextweb.com
The job of management is to tell legal that sometimes even though you can do something, you probably shouldn't. I'm sure in this case some sharp legal tack will start in with something about defending trademarks to keep them in force etc. This is where a manager takes some responsibility and decides that that's a acceptable risk in order to keep the company from looking like a cosmic dick.
I'm curious how many people protest that facet of law, given the many protests against patents.
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.
Less ethical than Total? Philip Morris? Freeport-McMoRan? Halliburton? Monsanto?
Save the hyperbole. Companies sue one another.
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.
> 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.
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.
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? :)
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...
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
Taking a political stand via device choice is a bit naive.
No-one at apple seriously thinks a polish supermarket is going to trade on the apple brand. But because it's close enough, they must sue. Otherwise the polish laptop maker who releases pomme d'terre range will be able to get in.
If you don't beleve me, paint a red triangle outside your stall in Dar es salaam and see how fast the nabisco lawyers hit you.
It's life.
What is bad is there is not a word of damage control from Apple - with Jobs gone they no longer get the benefit of the doubt - and so IMO should explain every piece of evil / seeming evil they do very clearly. Just not in their DNA though.
As you say, the rules on trademark protection are crystal clear and understood by anyone who takes 30 seconds to read up on them.
Any journalists running this sort of story are either unprofessional enough not to do the necessary research (and would likely not bother connecting the story to a press release) or, more likely, understand exactly what's happening but are just click whoring (in which case they'll just ignore it).
In either case though I don't see a press release from Apple would do anything - a lazy journalist won't care and nor will one just looking for the sensationalist story.
I can only surmise that apple does not reply directly because that sort of thing is not how apple works. Perhaps they should change.
But is suing really the only way to defend a trademark? If what you say is true, why don't we see a lot more of these? It can't be that hard to come up with similar "trade mark infringements" that nobody cares about? Or??
Actually, i think Apple should sue everyone selling real apples or eating apples and every company that uses the words application, apprentice, appointment but also everything containing jobs, steve and silverish designs.
But also they should be able to sue everyone for this but use LTE technology for free. Or the shitload of stuff others invented, like the smartphone or GSM.
Also the case will take 5 years and nothing will come out of it. That's how Polish courts work, and that's why nobody sues over stupid details like this in Poland.
Those that live here I guess - there's a good number of us.
Apple lost that one, and I suspect that they'll probably lose this one, too.
[1]: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/apple-claims-wooli...
And green color is commonly associated with being fresh.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/05/apple-woolworths-in-austr...
My takeaway from this is that trademark lawyers do their thing because they have to be seen to be protecting their trademarks, and I'm patently sick of the whole Apple legal patent/copyright stories that I'm just going to filter them from now on.
Lawyers be being lawyers.
The Polish website Telepolis is reporting that Apple demanded that the
Urząd Patentowy Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej (Poland’s Patent Office)
cancel the trademark belonging to A.PL Internet SA. The first meeting
actually took place on August 29, but it was adjourned and deferred to
a later date.
Postscript - Indeed it does: http://www.uprp.pl/znaki-towarowe-informacje-podstawowe/Lead... (there's a translation tool embedded in the page).
In the UK online food delivery is very competitive and businesses like this come and go fairly frequently. As soon as supermarkets get involved in home delivery these companies all start struggling.
I think it is fairly obvious a.pl has nothing to do with Apple or their brand. If Apple had waiting there was a less than insignificant chance the company would run out steam anyway..
http://fresh24.pl/Images/logo.png
Personally, I think this is a storm in a teacup; Apple have to enforce their trademark, and be shown to be doing so in order to maintain their trademark rights.
Your opinion is demonstrably wrong.
Bonus link, what you're experiencing is an example of cognitive bias because of priming. With the Samsung case fresh in your memory, you see Apple as launching a whole new wave of litigation, when their lawyers have been being lawyers all along: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Priming
"A simple example is the familiar "red car" phenomenon where a person who buys a red car suddenly starts seeing red cars everywhere. The familiarity of the red car primes them to spot other red cars faster."
Not to mention that the case you pointed me to (and more on http://www.engadget.com/search/?q=apple+trademark) look way more legitimate, because there is some kind of a visual resemblance with the Apple logo, the grocery store on the other hand is totally different visually and I think it is extremely unlikely that a consumer may be confused by it.
The thing about trademark disputes by Apple with grocery stores, and Microsoft recently with the European company with the 'Metro' trademark dispute is because the 'post-pc' era isn't fundamentally 'technology gadgets', it's new storefronts and marketplaces.
Amazon and their Kindles are about strengthening their digital storefront/marketplace.
Apple's iPad is arguably the most successful new model storefront/marketplace. It's like the high-end mall of virtual marketplaces.
This is a very real contested battleground. It's not about the apps, it's about the retail storefronts, both physical and virtual.
2011: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/8858333/Apple-ta...
In general: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._litigation#Trademark...
Anyone noticing a pattern here?
Still not similiar enough, IMHO.
Sorry only Polish
I could be as angry as the next guy from Apple patenting geometric shapes and natural gestures and tech that was already invented 20 years ago, but this is a typical case of trademark dispute, and Apple could be right here. A pl could sound like Apple and so Apple needs to protect their trademark, or they could loose it, as someone already stated.
I'm skeptical that even "A.pl" around a giant "a" with leaves coming out of it is enough to infringe on Apple's trade mark, but it's a much closer call than merely the letter a.
Apple suffers here because their trademark is an English word. (Though A.pl probably isn't intended to be a homonym for "apple" in Polish.)
So, how's them… ah, forget it.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer
Hasn't Apple heard what Poland did to ACTA? We love it when some big American entity comes pushing around and stepping on the little guy. We've got our pitchforks and torches always ready. Come, Apple, come.
Apple is awful.