Tuesday, March 28, 2006 :::
 
A-ha!!

It was the opinion of a certain, pudgy balding, English teacher--then a slender, already balding history grad student at a certain red-tile-roofed university on the West Coast--that a brand new radical computer company had copped its name from a once radical record company. Indeed, Steven Jobs has been silly enough to admit that Apple Computer got its name--"in part"-- from, well, the Apple Corps, Ltd., which elaborate pun serves as the name of the the corporate incarnation of the Beatles. By the time Apple Computers came along, the Apple Corps had retreated behind closed doors because of the innumerable law suits between four rather famous Liverpudlians, and the younger denizens of said red-tile-roofed campus expressed some perplexity on the issue when it was raised by the "older" grad student.

It turns out that said Apple Corps was not at all asleep at the wheel on the name copping, but had, with an eye to profits, agreed to let the matter sleep as long as "Apple Computers" only made Apple computers.

And then came the i-Pod and i-Tunes.

Oops.

Those're about music.

Apple Corps has once again gone to court with Apple Computers over said agreement. Just enter the phrase "Apple sues Apple" in any search engine, and you will see that this has been going on for a while.

Now, the principle shareholders in Apple Corps do not need money. But neither does Mr. Jobs. Longstanding English common law precedent is clear: in trademark, the first shall be first. It is not hard to see that Mr. Jobs may well be forced to fork over yet more cash to two boys from Liverpool and to the heirs of two other boys from Liverpool. On the other hand, he can probably find some pretty sharp lawyers to prove that iTunes is not a music business, or at least not one that violates said agreement.

It's all rather funny, actually, and it illustrates what the old song says:

All You Need Is Lawyers.

No, wait...

::: posted by A Mind That Suits at 4:59 PM


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What doesn't kill me, makes me laugh... usually.