“Apple Inc, known for aggressively protecting its iPads and iPhones from copycats, is doing the same for the interior design of its stores,” Erin Geiger Smith reports for Reuters.
“The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Apple’s request last week for trademarks on the minimalist design and layout of its retail outlets, the office’s records show,” Smith reports. “The description of the trademarks includes ‘a clear glass storefront surrounded by a paneled facade’ and, within the store, an ‘oblong table with stools… set below video screens flush mounted on the back wall.'”
“Apple declined to comment Tuesday on the trademark approval,” Smith reports. “The stores’ design was of great interest to the company’s former CEO, the late Steve Jobs. In 2003, Apple was granted a design patent on the floating glass staircases featured in many Apple stores. Jobs himself is listed as an inventor on the patent, according to the Patent and Trademark Office.”
Smith reports, “The company had originally filed its request for trademark protection on the interiors of the retail stores in May 2010, according to the government agency records. It was approved on January 22. Claiming this type of trademark right, known as trade dress, on interior designs has precedent, said Christopher Sprigman, a University of Virginia law professor and the co-author of the book ‘The Knockoff Economy.’ To be successful in a trade dress claim, Apple would need to show that consumers confuse an allegedly infringing store design with its own. ‘The million dollar question in this instance, as in pretty much all trade dress cases, is just how close a competitor can come to the design without infringing,’ Sprigman said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Cease and desist, Microsoft, you unoriginal hacks.
‘The Knockoff Economy.’ Must be a book read by Microsoft, Google, Samsung, etc.
troy – Not “read by,” but “written by” Microsoft, Google, Samsung …
Shockingly different, indeed:
Apple’s store:
http://www.patentlyapple.com/.a/6a0120a5580826970c017c36379c09970b-pi
Microsoft store:
Wow. How much did Microsoft pay those people to get into that store?
Apple has to sue MS over this.
… you send a nice, polite, message to anyone you deem as transgressing on your Trade Dress, asking that they Cease and Desist. Next day, ask if they got your message. Day after, ask for a copy of their plan to respond. THEN you sue their butts off. 😉
. . . but the Microsquid store is different as it has “blue-screen-of-death” screens plastered on all walls!
You know, I saw that inset photo out of the corner of my eyes while reading the article and thought it was an illustration of an Apple store. Those blue screens so resembled some Mac desktops I’ve seen.
Then you brought me back to a hard reality – that’s and MS store with, as you note, BSODs all over.
wait so woolworths can sue Apple then? Put Products on table for customers to see and use, hmm, doubt that’s trademarkable or patentable. rather stupid actually.
Yes, Woolworth’s can sue Apple. Anyone can sue anyone. To win a lawsuit is something different entirely.
Woolworth, however, would be hard pressed to sue anyone since they ceased to exist in 1996, unless you consider FootLocker to be the heir apparent to Woolworth. Even in that case, it is not about marketing and selling products in the open but about how it is done, i.e. the look and feel. Perhaps if Wendy’s decided to use the Golden Arches and produce a chicken in building with a red and white theme with a old white bearded man talking about his special spices, a couple of other companies might not be too happy and sue Wendy’s and successfully too.
there are many woolworths in mexico…. even a woolworths cafe near the hotel i stayed at…..
Sounds ridiculous to patent a store design but because of the copycats, it is necessary.
not a patent a TRADEMARK.
much different.
So far all these fancy patents seems to not help Apple vs Samsucks, Goople and all these other copy cats.
Seems silly to trademark these things until your direct competitor replicates it.
A trademark is different from a patent (or a copyright for that matter, which is different than either of the other two as well). They are two different laws. Not going to explain all of the rules, google it if you’d like to know more, but a trademark is infinitely simpler to defend than a patent.
I’m glad to see Apple, like any company, try to patent it’s designs and innovation efforts. And I realize that Microsoft may be copying the store layout. But it does seem a bit silly to try to patent that. It’s the Apple product that everyone wants not the store layout. But hey, if they can get by with it so be it.
I thought the photo was an Apple store until I noticed all the junk windows products on the tables and the lack of people. Apple I think would win if or should I say when they sue MicroSoft. Why can’t these other companies spend some money and come up with something original?
The store In the photo is the Scottsdale Arizona store. If you visit the store you will find it is significantly different in many aspects from the design and layout of the local Apple Stores. By the way, the photo is somewhat out of date. Microsoft has changed the layout two or three times since then.
Even with the changes Apple has the historic opportunity to finish Microsoft off. 2013 need to be the year of software!
Apple needs to be concerned with making excellent products rather than worry about MS’s furniture arrangements.
I don’t believe you can have a trademark on a store design. Apples store design is a rip off of your typical art gallery. (pretty much a white empty space with plenty of natural light and only having the bear essentials for utilities) Their stores are like art spaces, somewhere it is pleasant to be – the macs and iStuff just sit there like art. And as with every great gallery, what brings the people is the art works. I love it, but it shouldn’t be trademarked.
The art, yes, the art, of enticing people into a retail space is complex and demanding, and constantly in flux. Apple succeeded with a readily transposable model that does indeed work rather well, irrespective of the quality of the products therein, getting people inside. There is little question that displays/arrangements/facades/environments of this sort are trademarkable- there is a long legal history of such trademarks.
See, the problem is, hardly anyone would _confuse_ the Microsoft Store with the Apple Store, because we all just know that Microsoft simply copies just about everything Apple does. We would have been very confused if Microsoft had actually done something new and unique.
What good is a trademark or anything else? Patents? Nothing matters, the judges will rule to give it all away. Level that playing field, give everyone a trophy. They all deserve to share Apple’s genius according to the Courts.