“On 5 February 2007, Apple Inc. and Apple Corps announced a settlement of their trademark dispute under which Apple Inc. would own all of the trademarks related to ‘Apple’ and would license certain of those trademarks back to Apple Corps for their continued use,” Jack Purcher reports for PatentlyApple.
“The settlement ended the ongoing trademark lawsuit between the companies, with each party bearing its own legal costs, and Apple Inc. would continue using its name and logos on iTunes,” Purcher reports. “The settlement included terms that were confidential, although newspaper accounts at the time stated that Apple Computer was buying out Apple Corps’ trademark rights for a total of $500 million U.S.”
Purcher reports, “On October 24, 2012 the Canadian IP Office disclosed that the famed Beatles recording label logo is now a registered trademark of Apple Inc.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Arline M.” for the heads up.]
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Wow, wish Steve Jobs could have been here for this. I’m guessing it was an important step in the Apple relationship
Uh ok. Let’s move along.
Obviously, $500 million figure is total tabloid nonsense. Besides sheer ridiculousness of the figure itself, the value of such magnitude would be registered in Apple’s quarter/year results with SEC.
A picture made from an apple, for Pete’s sake ! (They could have taken any apple from the same orchard). What is the originality in that ?
This particular apple, from which the picture was taken, should be preserved in a museum, for posterity.
That is one expensive blurry picture of a green apple. Hey Tim, you can get a better quality pic at ShutterStock for a lot less.
Dimwit, it’s a damned Trademark, you can’t use just any photo of a green apple, the reason it’s not too sharp is that it’s almost certainly been scanned from a printed copy, and blurred slightly to avoid moire patterns.
But you knew that really, didn’t you…
For 590 * 571 = 336890 pixels, US$500million would be 500 * 10^6 / 338890 US$/pixel or 1484 $/pixel.
A pretty steep price to pay for each pixel 🙂
Obviously, it is the combination of pixels that counts, the Beatles’ old logo is not just a concatenation of independent pixels, each of which obviously can’t be copyrighted.
But given 16 intensity levels for each of 3 colors, we would need 12 bits to represent 1 pixel.
336890 pixels then contain 12*336690=4040280 bits of information (although most typical images are just gibberish random noise). For meaningful images, compression factors of 10-100 are achievable, therefore, let’s assume the (pretty low quality) image can be compressed 30x. Then we are talking about 135kb to represent the image. or US$3700 per bit of information.
Now, let’s smooth the image till it is barely recognizable, but still copyrightable. Maybe we will be left with 1.35kb. Then 500 million would amount to US$370,000/bit (take the 1.35kb or leave it).
Ridiculous.
What is Beatles? Is it some kind of App developer? Why would Apple pay money for a picture of a green apple?
Beatles are a type of insect. The green apple is what they make the insecticide from, and is why your Apple software doesn’t have bugs!
Are you really that ignorant, or are you being disingenuous for comic effect and we’re missing it?
I find it almost impossible to believe that there’s anyone in the developed world who hasn’t heard of the Beatles.
Hey, I hear from Beatles every morning as I walk. They have a snapping sound when I step on them…
(Silver) Beatles & (Buddy Holly & The) Crickets are musical insect legacy of the 50’s and 60’s.
Come on Rorschach, you can’t think that the Beatles have any relevance these days. They have nothing to do with AAPL or Apple products. Your comment makes me wonder who really has the attributes you seem to be questioning.
Of course they have relevance, as the BEST BAND EVER.
Hope Apple didn’t buy the trademark “Yoko Ono”.
Adding up the cost of every Apple-branded device I’ve ever approved the purchase of, or bought myself, over the past 30+ years, doesn’t even make a dent in that 500M price tag! But I could maybe build a house out of all those computers. An iHouse (with no Windows!)
I’m thrown off by the use of the word “now” in the headline — the only recent aspect about this is that the Canadian IP office spilled the beans, and the logo has been Apple Inc’s since 2007. I thought this was common knowledge. Every Beatles CD release from 2009 and on says something like “‘Apple’ and the Apple logo issued under exclusive license to Apple Corps Ltd.”; not naming Apple Inc. as the licensor is part of the confidentiality agreement. (Previous EMI issues of Beatle recordings just said “‘Apple’ is a trademark of Apple Corps Ltd.”)
A little rusty on my Canadian trademark law, but I’m pretty sure by law you can’t register a plant or fruit as a trademark.
Apple can register their logo of course (and has), as it’s a distinctive mark. But the Apple records logo is technically unregistrable since it’s simply a generic depiction of a plant/fruit.
Not sure why this has never come up.
In before the unavoidable Ringo/Yoko jokes.
“Well how do you like them Apples?”
Some logo—a frumpy green apple that has been crudely silhouetted. Maybe Apple paid millions for this, but they must have been temporarily insane when they did it.
That whole lawsuit thing was simply because Yucco Oh No! was greedy. The worst thing that happened to the Beats was when John married her and she saw dollar signs in the deal.
That’s a lot of cash for a ‘Granny Smith’.
ok
source
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