Yoga, strengthening, kickboxing … Since November 2021, Apple has been used in France with its service in Apple Fitness+Subscription. It offers ten types of exercises, which can be done with the iPhone and Apple Watch. If this service is happy, it is also in the heart of a litigation.
Director of a Brest company, called Sport & Fitness Management (SFM), Loïc Pajot assigned Apple to the Court. He accuses the American giant of having copied the brand of the sports complex that operates with his business, namely “Fitness Plus”. Since the end of 2011, this sports hall has offered private and collective lessons, as well as online courses.
After several formal notices aimed at Apple, who remained in vain, Loïc Pajot decided to go further. “Therefore, we have no choice but to assign Apple to the Paris Court,” François-Xavier Langlais, lawyer’s lawyer, said to the rudder on Wednesday, April 17, transmitted by The informed.
Accusations of falsification
In detail, Loïc Pajot points to three names used by Apple, identified in the company’s official communications: “Apple fitness+”, “fitness+” and “Apple fitness+”, the Apple logo followed by fitness+. If the deposits of these competitive brands were opposed to the European Union for the Intellectual Union in March 2021, an obstacle was found.
At the end of 2022, the businessman really wanted to develop the logo of his company (color change from the bottom) depositing a new brand. While he thought he maintained the previousity of the first brand, that was not the case because it was achieved by the loss at the end of December 2021, ten years after his deposit.
But, for his lawyer, that does not prevent action in the falsification of the facts before the expiration of the “Fitness Plus” brand, which was sufficiently distinctive at that time. Apple has deposited “fifteen brands that combine Apple Fitness+ and Apple Fitness+”, this can create confusion for the average care consumer.
A non -distinctive brand
Loïc Pajot thus requests 600,000 euros in repair, to falsify and unfair competition, but also the cessation of the exploitation of the three denominations by Apple. The amounts that the American giant estimates too large for “a brand expired in December 2021”.
The company, by the voice of its lawyer, also believes that the conditions for falsification or unfair competition are not met because Apple is accustomed to associating its brand with very common terms (Apple Music, Apple Store …). “Apple Fitness+ is a decline of the notorious Apple brand associated with a common word,” he said.
The lawyer also emphasized that the company had not opposed when the Brest company presented a new brand for the color change of the logo in 2022 because “this brand was not distinctive, no one is interested in.”
The reason why Apple requested the nullity of the “Fitness Plus” brand, because not only the term “physical aptitude” was already widely used in 2011, when the company of Loïc Pajot presented the brand, the “more” symbol is elogante, to “add a higher quality than a product or a service.”
Therefore, he concludes that the risk of association between Apple and a sports hall in Brest is not tested by Loïc Pajot. However, the decision on this case will be taken in a few months. Contacted by Tech & Co, Apple didn’t track.
Source: BFM TV
