NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Apple Corps v Apple Computer

Between 1978 and 2006 there have been a number of legal disputes between Apple Corps (owned by The Beatles) and the computer manufacturer Apple Computer over competing trademark rights. In the latest dispute, the English High Court handed down a judgment on May 8, 2006 in favour of Apple Computer. The manager of Apple Corps has stated that the decision will be appealed. Apple Records logo, featuring a Granny Smith apple. ... The Beatles were an English pop and rock music group from Liverpool, who continue to be held in the very highest regard for their artistic achievements, their huge commercial success, and their ground-breaking role in the history of popular music. ... Apple Computer, Inc. ... A trademark or trade mark[1] is a distinctive sign of some kind which is used by a business to uniquely identify itself and its products and services to consumers, and to distinguish the business and its products or services from those of other businesses. ... Her Majestys High Court of Justice (usually known more simply as the High Court) is, together with the Crown Court and the Court of Appeal, part of the Supreme Court of England and Wales: see Courts of England and Wales. ... May 8 is the 128th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (129th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... An appeal is the act or fact of challenging a judicially cognizable and binding judgment to a higher judicial authority. ...

History of trademark disputes

apple corps logo File links The following pages link to this file: Apple Records ... apple corps logo File links The following pages link to this file: Apple Records ... Apple Records logo, featuring a Granny Smith apple. ... Apple Records logo, featuring a Granny Smith apple. ... Old Apple Computer logo Created by User:PhilHibbs This is a copyrighted and/or trademarked logo. ... Old Apple Computer logo Created by User:PhilHibbs This is a copyrighted and/or trademarked logo. ... Apple Computer, Inc. ...

1978 - 1981

In 1978, Apple Corps, the Beatles-founded holding company and owner of their record label, Apple Records, filed suit against Apple Computer for trademark infringement. The suit settled in 1981 with an undisclosed amount being paid to Apple Corps. This amount had been estimated to be $50–$200 million, but was later revealed to be $80,000.^[1] As a condition of the settlement, Apple Computer agreed not to enter the music business. 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ... Apple Records logo, featuring a Granny Smith apple. ... A holding company is a company that owns enough voting stock in another firm to control management and operations by influencing or electing its board of directors. ... Apple Records logo, featuring a Granny Smith apple. ... Trademark infringement is a violation of the exclusive rights attaching to a registered trademark without the authorisation of the trademark owner or any licensees (provided that such authorization was within the scope of the license). ...

1986 - 1989

In 1986, Apple Computer added MIDI and audio-recording capabilities to its computers, including the advanced 5503 sound chip from famous synthesizer maker Ensoniq into the Apple IIGS line. In 1989 this led Apple Corps to sue again, claiming violation of the 1981 settlement agreement. The outcome of this litigation effectively terminated any further development of the highly profitable Apple II line, all forays by Apple Computer into the multimedia field in parallel with the Amiga at the time, and any future advanced built-in musical hardware into the Macintosh line. 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Note names and MIDI note numbers Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or MIDI, is an industry-standard electronic communications protocol that defines each musical note in an electronic musical instrument such as a synthesizer, precisely and concisely, allowing electronic musical instruments and computers to exchange data, or talk, with each other. ... Ensoniq Corp. ... The Apple IIGS, the fifth model inception of the Apple II, was the most powerful member of the Apple II series of personal computers made by Apple Computer. ... The Apple II was one of the most popular personal computers of the 1980s. ... The original Amiga (1985) The Amiga is a family of home/personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation as an advanced game console. ... The first Macintosh computer, introduced in 1984, upgraded to a 512K Fat Mac. ...

1991

In 1991, another settlement involving payment of around $26.5 million to Apple Corps was reached. This time, an Apple employee named Jim Reekes had included a sampled system sound called Chimes to the Macintosh operating system, but Apple's legal department objected citing the agreement with Apple Corps. Reekes renamed the sound to sosumi, which he asserted was Japanese and meant nothing musical, but in fact can be read phonetically as "So, sue me". Outlined in the settlement was each company's respective trademark rights to the term "Apple". Apple Corps held the right to use Apple on any "creative works whose principal content is music", while Apple Computer held the right to use Apple on "goods or services...used to reproduce, run, play or otherwise deliver such content", but not on content distributed on physical media.^[2] In other words, Apple Computer agreed that it would not package, sell or distribute physical music materials. This article lacks information on the importance of the subject matter. ... Sosumi is one of the system sounds introduced in Apple Computers Macintosh System 7 operating system in 1991, an extremely short sample of a xylophone, which gained notoriety in computer folklore as a cheeky response to a long-running Apple Corps v. ...

2003 - 2006

In September 2003, Apple Corps sued Apple Computer again, this time for breach of contract, in using the Apple logo in the creation and operation of Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store, which Apple Corps contended was a violation of the previous agreement. Some observers believed the wording of the previous settlement favoured Apple Computer in this case.^[3] Other observers speculated that if Apple Corps was successful, Apple Computer would be forced to offer a much larger settlement, perhaps resulting in Apple Corps becoming a major shareholder in Apple Computer, or perhaps in Apple Computer splitting the iPod and related business into a separate entity.^[4] Breach of contract is a legal concept in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other partys performance. ... The United Kingdom iTunes Music Store. ...

The trial opened on March 29, 2006 in England,^[5] before a single judge of the High Court, Mr Justice Mann. In opening arguments, a lawyer for Apple Corps stated that in 2003, shortly before the launch of Apple Computer's on-line music store, Apple Corps rejected a $1 million offer from Apple Computer to use the Apple name on the iTunes store. March 29 is the 88th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (89th in Leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A trial court or court of first instance is the court in which most civil or criminal cases begin. ... Her Majestys High Court of Justice (usually known more simply as the High Court) is, together with the Crown Court and the Court of Appeal, part of the Supreme Court of England and Wales: see Courts of England and Wales. ...

On May 8, 2006 the court ruled in favour of Apple Computer,^[6]^[7] with Justice Mann holding that "I find no breach of the trademark agreement has been demonstrated."^[8]^[9] May 8 is the 128th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (129th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In response, Neil Aspinall, manager of Apple Corps, indicated that the company did not accept the decision: "With great respect to the trial judge, we consider he has reached the wrong conclusion," and announced that it would "be filing an appeal and putting the case again to the Court of Appeal." The judgment orders Apple Corps to pay Apple Computer's legal costs at an estimated £2m, but pending the appeal the judge declined Apple Computer's request for an interim payment of £1.5m.^[10] Court of Appeals is the title of certain appellate courts in various jurisdictions. ...

References

September 30 is the 273rd day of the year (274th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 92 days remaining. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... CNET Networks Inc. ... LegalZoom is an online legal documentation service that was founded by Robert L. Shapiro, Brian P. Y. Liu, Brian S. Lee, and Edward R. Hartman. ... Reuters Group plc (LSE: RTR and NASDAQ: RTRSY) is best known as a news service that provides reports from around the world to newspapers and broadcasters. ... May 8 is the 128th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (129th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry. ... May 8 is the 128th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (129th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Her Majestys Courts Service is an amalgamation of the Magistrates Courts Service and the Court Service. ... The Times is a national newspaper published daily in the United Kingdom since 1785, and under its current name since 1788. ... May 8 is the 128th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (129th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC, sometimes also known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, founded in 1922. ... May 8 is the 128th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (129th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

See also

Categories: Apple Computer litigation | Apple Corps | English case law Image File history File links Wikinews-logo. ... Wikinews is a free-content news source and a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. ... From the 1980s to the present Apple Computer has been plaintiff or defendant in notable civil actions in the United States and other countries. ... A moron in a hurry is a phrase that appears to have been first used in the 1979 English legal case of Morning Star Cooperative Society v Express Newspapers Limited. ... In trademark law, confusing similarity is a test used during the examination process to determine whether a trademark conflicts with another, earlier mark, and also used in trademark infringement proceedings to determine whether the use of a mark infringes a registered trade mark. ... Apple Records logo, featuring a Granny Smith apple. ... The Beatles were an English pop and rock music group from Liverpool, who continue to be held in the very highest regard for their artistic achievements, their huge commercial success, and their ground-breaking role in the history of popular music. ... Neil Aspinall (born December 13, 1942) is best known as the assistant and road manager for the hugely popular rock band, The Beatles. ... Allen Klein (born December 18, 1931) is a business manager. ... A onetime retail store, located on Baker Street in London, England, and one of the first business ventures made by the fledgling Apple Corps, a company founded by the Beatles. ... Apple Records logo, featuring a Granny Smith apple. ... . ... Badfinger, as pictured on their album Straight Up. ... The Black Dyke Band, formerly the Black Dyke Mills Band, is one of the oldest and best known brass bands. ... Delaney, Bonnie & Friends featured artists such as Eric Clapton, Carl Radle, Bobby Whitlock, and Jim Gordon, who after Delaney, Bonnie & Friends, would form the group Derek and the Dominos. ... The song God save Oz was first demoed by John Lennon in the early 70s and an ad hoc group named the Elastic Oz Band was formed to record it. ... Elephants Memory were a New York band most notable for backing up John Lennon and Yoko Ono during 1972, on a pair of albums and a handful of TV and live appearances. ... Grapefruit were a London-based British band of the late Sixties. ... George Harrison, MBE (February 24, 1943 â€“ November 29, 2001) was a popular British guitarist, singer, songwriter, record producer, and film producer, best known as a member of The Beatles. ... Mary Hopkin (born May 3, 1950) is a British singer. ... Hot chocolate with marshmallow For the musical band, see Hot Chocolate. ... John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE (October 9, 1940 â€“ December 8, 1980) was an iconic 20th century composer and singer of popular music with Paul McCartney as Lennon-McCartney throughout the 1960s, and was the founding member of The Beatles. ... Jackie Lomax is a guitarist, singer/songwriter from Liverpool. ... Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE (born June 18, 1942) is an English singer, instrumentalist and songwriter, who first came to prominence as a member of The Beatles. ... The Modern Jazz Quartet was established in 1952 by Milt Jackson (vibraphone), John Lewis (piano, musical director), Percy Heath (bass), and Kenny Clarke (drums). ... Yoko Ono in 2005 Yoko Ono Lennon (born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese-American musician and artist who has lived most of her life in the United States. ... David Peel is a New York City-based musician who first achieved prominence in the late 1960s. ... The Plastic Ono Band is the conceptual group John Lennon and Yoko Ono formed in 1969 before the dissolution of The Beatles. ... William Everett Preston (September 2, 1946 â€“ June 6, 2006) was an American soul musician from Houston, Texas, raised mostly in Los Angeles, California. ... This article is about the musician. ... Ronnie Spector (born August 10, 1943, as Veronica Yvette Bennett in New York City) was lead singer of the girl group The Ronettes, and is known as the original bad girl of rock and roll. ... Starr in the early 1960s Richard Starkey, MBE (born July 7, 1940), known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is a popular British actor, singer, and musician, best known as the drummer for The Beatles. ... The Sundown Playboys The Sundown Playboys are a Cajun music band still active in Louisiana. ... Sir John Tavener (born 28 January 1944 in London) is an English composer. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Doris Troy (January 6, 1937 - February 16, 2004) was an R&B singer, known to her many fans as Mama Soul. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Core members of Wings, Linda McCartney, Paul McCartney and Denny Laine. ... Apple Computer, Inc. ... A corporation is a legal person which, while being composed of natural persons, exists completely separately from them. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Steven Paul Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is currently the CEO of Apple Computer and is a leading figure in both the computer and entertainment industries. ... Bill Campbell is the current Chairman of the Board and former CEO of Intuit. ... Jerry York is an American businessman, he was the former CFO of IBM and Chrysler. ... Millard S. Drexler is a businessman, formerly CEO of Gap Inc, he joined the board of directors of Gap in November 1983 and left his position in October 2002. ... Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. ... Arthur D. Levinson (born March 31, 1950 in Seattle, Washington) is President and Chief Executive Officer of Genentech. ... Apple Macintosh models grouped by CPU type. ... The first Macintosh computer, introduced in 1984, upgraded to a 512K Fat Mac. ... The eMac, short for education Mac, is a Macintosh desktop computer made by Apple Computer. ... The title of this article should be iMac. ... A white 5th Generation iPod (iPod with video) with a case and earbuds. ... The Mac mini is the smallest desktop computer marketed by Apple Computer. ... The MacBook is a line of consumer Macintosh laptop computers developed and marketed by Apple Computer. ... The MacBook Pro is a line of Macintosh laptop computers developed by Apple Computer for the professional market. ... Power Macintosh, or Power Mac, is the name of a line of Apple Macintosh personal computers based on various models of PowerPC microprocessors. ... A small Xserve cluster with an Xserve RAID. Xserve is the name of Apple Computers Macintosh 1U rackmount line of server computers. ... Xserve RAID is Apple Computers mass storage rack mounted device. ... This article is about Apples wireless networking product. ... Airport Extreme is a Wireless Solution used on the Apple Macintosh platorm. ... The iSight is a webcam made by Apple Computer. ... // This list of Macintosh software reveals prominent Mac OS computer programs. ... AppleWorks is an office suite of software applications sold by Apple Computer. ... Aperture is a software program for Mac OS X announced by Apple Computer on October 19th, 2005, designed to assist professional photographers in post-production work. ... Final Cut Studio is a video application suite for Mac OS X by Apple Computer. ... iLife 06 Box iLife is a collection of software products created by Apple, designed for Mac OS X, used to create, organize, view and manipulate digital content. ... iWork is a suite of applications created by Apple Computer, containing a word processing and layout application (Pages), and a presentation package (Keynote). ... Logic Pro is a MIDI sequencer and Digital Audio Workstation software application that runs on the Mac OS X platform. ... Mac OS X is a proprietary operating system developed and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. ... Mac OS X Server is the server-oriented version of Apple Computers modern operating system, Mac OS X. It is based on the BSD-Unix-based operating system that Apple Computer acquired from NeXT Computer and which formed the basis of the current Mac OS X. The regular version... QuickTime is a multimedia technology developed by Apple Computer, capable of handling various formats of digital video, sound, text, animation, music, and immersive panoramic (and sphere panoramic) images. ... This article is about the History of Apple Computer, a Silicon Valley company based in Cupertino, California, whose core business is computer technologies. ... This is a list of Apple Computer hardware products which were superceded by improved versions, or discontinued, and are no longer manufactured. ... The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States. ... Image File history File links Green_Arrow_Up. ... A fiscal year or financial year is a 12-month period used for calculating annual (yearly) financial reports in businesses and other organizations. ... NASDAQ (originally an acronym for National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations ) is a U.S. electronic stock exchange. ...

Contents

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