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by cunninglinguist 6098 days ago
Apple: some of the whiniest bitches on the planet. "No, you can't use our trademarked glossy chat bubbles in your $5 iPhone app! We own rounded rectangles with gradients! The ratio of people to cake is enormous!!"

Seriously, as a longtime user of trendy/overpriced Apple products, these stories piss me off and "erode confidence" in Apple as an honest and aboveboard company. The more successful they become, the less I like how they comport themself in the marketplace. Nothing wrong with defending your legitimate trademarks, but this sort of shot across the bow really makes Apple seem, on the whole, like a gaggle of paranoid hubristic geek bitchmongers.
2 comments
scottjackson 6098 days ago
As much as I agree with you that this probably isn't much of an infringement, I do know that the job of the legal department at companies like Apple is to jump on every single instance of a trademark that might even remotely infringe on Apple's own trademarks. As far as I'm aware, sometimes Apple (or [insert big company name here]) may not even think it's very much of an infringement -- they may just make the application to cover their asses. If they didn't pursue every potential trademark infringement, they could find themselves in a world of pain ten years down the road.

I think it's important to make a distinction between Apple, the company that ships those shiny insanely great products, and Apple's legal department, the people whose sole purpose is to protect, above all else (even at the price of looking like d'bags), Apple's ownership of Apple's stuff.

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TomOfTTB 6098 days ago
This example is too new to determine one way or the other. But the example cited by cunninglinguist above (regarding the chat bubbles) was one that went way beyond the legal department. Chess Wars was rejected by iPhone app approval (http://www.macrumors.com/iphone/2009/09/01/chess-wars-app-up...)

Moreover Apple has a history of aggressively pursuing anything that remotely violates their trademarks.

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GHFigs 6098 days ago
Nothing wrong with defending your legitimate trademarks, but this sort of shot across the bow...

What is the distinction here? What measure of a legitimate trademark defense does this action not meet?

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