[laumars]

That’s not quite how it works. Companies argue that there’s no brand confusion in order to coexist with similar trading names and use market sector as evidence but there isn’t any specific law that says this has to be the case.

To use your Beetles vs Apple Computers case study, Apple Computers actually settled with the record label and part of the agreement of that settlement was that Apple wouldn’t enter the music industry. It wasn’t a case that the record label lost, it was a settlement. Hence the follow up case between the two after Apple released iTunes (or whatever it was that triggered their “arrival” in the music industry).