November 30th saw a News.com.au article regarding one Green Communications, formerly Apple Communications, and its recent legal wranglings with Apple Computer over the use of the name. According to the article, the company formerly known as Apple Communications — a telecommunications company set up to rival Orange — was ordered to pay $100,000 AUD to Apple Computer as compensation for lost income. The article quotes:
“It’s just ridiculous,” Mr Cheng said. “My logo was based on the Granny Smith [apple]. Theirs is a red apple with a bite out of it and a leaf on top. I sell digital communications and they sell computer hardware. Where’s the connection?”
Apple Computer Australia says it’s simple: The company has owned the global naming rights of the popular fruit since the computer boom of the early 1980s.
The only exception is made for fruiterers, although a quick glance through the phone book turns up any number of possible offenders.
“My advice is that because of various trademark lodgments in Australia, up to 20 years ago, the word ‘apple’ can only be used legally by greengrocers and a giant US computer manufacturer,” Mr Cheng said.
Apple Communications is now known as Green Communications, while Apple Computer Australia made no comment on the article. You can read the article in full at News.com.au.
The Mac Observer Spin:
This article certainly tries its best to paint Apple as the bad guy, even to the point of its misleading remark that Apple Computer owns the global naming rights. Music fans will note that the author seems to have forgotten a certain recording company and its little band called the Beatles. But the law is still the law: when you register a business name in any Australian state, it uniquely identifies you in your state — it does not allow the exclusive use of that name, national or otherwise. Exclusive use of a name comes from registering a trademark, and Apple Computer already did that quite a number of years ago.
Sorry, but too late. The advice Cheng received is entirely correct. One wonders now whether Green’s use of the term iGreen is a deliberate jab at Apple’s iStuff, in the same way that the use of the word Apple (and Green) could be construed as a jab at Orange.