NEW: Apple thinks you, dear ordinary consumer, can't tell apples from oranges. So it regularly squashes trademark applications with even the hint of an apple. The result is 20 years of cartoonish results.

NYT on our report:

Apps and Oranges: Behind Apple’s ‘Bullying’ on Trademarks
The company has opposed singer-songwriters, school districts and food blogs for trying to trademark names or logos featuring an apple — or a pear or

Apps and Oranges: Behind Apple’s ‘Bullying’ on Trademarks

The company has opposed singer-songwriters, school districts and food blogs for trying to trademark names or logos featuring an apple — or a pear or pineapple.



Apple opposed the trademark applications of these entities. Credit...Composite by The New York Times

By Ryan Mac and Kellen Browning

Ryan Mac reported from Los Angeles and Kellen Browning from San Francisco.

March 11, 2022

When Genevieve St. John started a sex-and-life coaching blog in 2019, she designed a logo for the business of a neon green and pink apple, which was cut open to resemble female genitalia. ... Not long after applying to register the logo with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that year, Ms. St. John received an unpleasant surprise. Her request had been challenged — by Apple.

In a 246-page opposition filing, lawyers for the iPhone maker wrote that Ms. St. John’s logo was “likely to tarnish Apple’s reputation, which Apple has cultivated in part by endeavoring not to associate itself with overtly sexual or pornographic material.” ... Ms. St. John, 41, a human resources professional in Chandler, Ariz., was crestfallen. Without the money to hire a lawyer and take on the tech behemoth, she decided not to respond to Apple’s challenge. That paved the way for a default judgment in favor of the electronics giant. ... “I wasn’t even making money off it,” Ms. St. John said of her blog, which she has put on hiatus. “But it’s Apple, and I’m not going to argue with them because I don’t have a million dollars.”

Ms. St. John is one of dozens of entrepreneurs, small businesses and corporations that Apple has gone after in recent years for applying to trademark names with the word “apple” or logos of stemmed fruit. Between 2019 and last year, Apple, the world’s most valuable public company, worth $2.6 trillion, filed 215 trademark oppositions to defend its logo, name or product titles, according to the Tech Transparency Project, a nonprofit watchdog. That’s more than the estimated 136 trademark oppositions that Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Google collectively filed in the same period, the group said.

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Ryan Mac is a technology reporter focused on corporate accountability across the global tech industry. He won a 2020 George Polk award for his coverage of Facebook and is based in Los Angeles. @RMac18

Kellen Browning is a technology reporter in the Bay Area covering the video game industry and general tech news. He graduated from Pomona College. @kellen_browning

A version of this article appears in print on March 12, 2022, Section B, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Trying to Trademark a Fruit Logo? You Might Hear From Apple’s Lawyers.. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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