The company Apple, whose logo -like the name- represents an apple, tries to officially become the owner of the “fruit” in Switzerland, recovering the rights to it. Apple started legal proceedings in 2017 to recover the rights to Apple’s “images” for a number of products, such as electronic or digital equipment.
In the United States, Apple has an international registration for an apple image on so-called “class 9″ products, that is, mainly sound, video and cinematographic recordings,” recalls the Swiss newspaper. Time.
It was only in the fall of 2022 that the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IPI) partially granted him the right to certain products, citing the legal principle that “generic” images of common goods “belong in the public domain”. Time. Not satisfied, the Apple company appealed the decision in April 2023, before the Federal Administrative Court, whose sessions are held behind closed doors. Therefore, the decision is expected to be made in the coming months.
For more than ten years, the company had already been fighting for control of the word “Apple” in Switzerland. The company already has an impressive track record of lobbying all sorts of entities around the world, be it a German bike path, a pear-shaped logo app, or a small American family-owned decorative paper business.
Swiss fruits on the viewer
It is in particular Fruit-Union Switzerland that is in the sights of the Californian company. Its logo actually represents an apple, red on a white background, with, in small, the Swiss flag. If the brand’s own logo is not likely to suffer an impact, if the Court’s decision is approved, all ads related to apples, which are fond of the Swiss, could suffer.
According to a survey by the Tech Transparency Project organization, carried out in 2022, it revealed that between 2019 and 2021 Apple had filed more complaints of this type than Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and Google combined, indicates the specialized media Wired.
Source: BFM TV
