Apple Inc. (AAPL) Wins iBooks Trademark Case

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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) wins another case. This time, the Cupertino-based tech giant was sued by a New York book publisher over the label “iBooks”. On Wednesday, the court ruled in Apple’s favor that the publisher’s mark was very distinct and that consumers could easily differentiate the two.

Apple Inc. (AAPL) Wins iBooks Trademark Case

The case originally started in 2011 when science-fiction publisher Black Tower Publisher filed a trademark lawsuit against Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) after the company said they would use the word “iBooks” for their ebook store.

Black Tower obtained the iBooks mark in 2006 when they purchased the assets from another publisher. That publisher used the term for an imprint for horror and sci-fi books published in the early 2000s.  Neither Black Tower nor the previous publisher registered the word for a trademark.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) did register their iBooks trademark in 2010. The company first acquired the rights in 1999 from another software company. They were initially hoping to use the trademark for a line of colorful computers.

US District Judge Denise Cote explained, “They have offered no evidence that consumers who use Apple’s iBooks software to download ebooks have come to believe that Apple has also entered the publishing business and is the publisher of all of the downloaded books, despite the fact that each book bears the imprint of its actual publisher.”

This is another big win for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) which isn’t really all that surprising considering the company already registered the name for their use. Apple is a savvy company and that’s primarily the reason they don’t usually have a hard time winning cases. Now that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has full rights to use iBooks, they can relax a little over that and possibly contemplate what to do with iBooks. Not that long ago, Apple reportedly tried to convince Goodreads to join in a partnership deal before Amazon acquired the company.

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