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Comment by gridlockd | Hacker News Reader

It's more about defending your trademark. In principle, Apple doesn't care about some random company using a pear, but if they don't defend it now to the full extent, in any future dispute with a potential competitor, then "you didn't defend it that one time!" becomes an argument.

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That’s an oft repeated myth, but it’s not quite true.

From an article by the EFF:

> The circumstances under which a company could actually lose a trademark—such as abandonment and genericide—are quite limited. Genericide […] is very rare […]. Courts also set a very high bar to show abandonment (usually years of total non-use). Importantly, failure to enforce a mark against every potential infringer does not show abandonment.

[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not...

The EFF is a strongly partisan organization, of course they advise against pushing these kinds of suits.

Call it a myth if you will, blame it on overzealous lawyer who just want to create work for themselves.

My only point is that this "myth" is so powerful that it creates a business reality where these suits are ubiquitous, but it's only news if a company like Apple does it.

That's not how trademark law works. Though it is how a lot of companies like to pretend it works in order to justify obviously egregious lawsuits.

At most you can make an argument that estoppel can apply. Estoppel prevents you suing somebody for doing a thing you agreed they can do, even if you would have been allowed to sue them for doing it if you hadn't agreed they could do it. But estoppel doesn't magically extend to other parties.

Ask yourself: What does Apple have to gain from this? It can't be money, because it's a tiny company. Does Apple just like to start a "egregious lawsuit" for the fun of it, because they love to be evil? That explanation just doesn't work.

I'm not going to an enter into an armchair-lawyer contest with you. My understanding of the law is indeed limited, but it reflects what is going on in actual business.

Not every decision is going to be entirely rational, especially when it comes to giant corporations with thousands of stakeholders and various internal incentives that may not be visible to outside observers. E.g., sometimes companies do stuff simply because it's helpful for someone's upcoming performance review. Apple probably has a team responsible for trademark protection and these people have to regularly demonstrate activity to justify the budgets.

They don't do it to be evil, they do it to maintain the unique status of their brand. Apple is a luxury brand, like Louis Vuitton, or Mercedes. Their price difference compared to other brands is explained mostly by the value of their brand, not the value of their products, although they do make high quality products. That means they tend to defend the uniqueness of their brand, to the limit and beyond the limits of what the law allows.

Another possible explanation is that their lawyers are having a quiet period and either want more income or want to demonstrate their value. Oftentimes there can be an internal logic to these things that on the whole makes little sense but within an organization is perfectly rational.

The most likely explanation is bored lawyers justifying their own existence and angling for a bonus.

There really shouldn't be a case here. The logo is different, the trading area is different, there is exactly zero chance of confusing the two designs or the two companies.

Another possible explanation: They have a team of lawyers with the task of enforcing their trademark. It's a machine that went off tracks because they either started doing mass lawsuits or ran out of higher priority targets.

It's like when you have a team of lawyers with the job of looking at contracts and licences, they will start suggesting changes even if that makes no sense because they're paid to suggest changes. See jslint and the special "can be used for evil" licence.

Apple has a really weak brand and a recognition problem with their logo. Not surprising they took that course of action when that random company decided to use a fruit too. /s

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