Apple has lost a lawsuit it filed against the Italian clothing brand that trademarked the name of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. The company especially took issue with the logo that’s being used with the Steve Jobs trademark, but the courts sided with the Italian clothing brand.
Steve Jobs trademark owned by Italian clothing company
According to Italian-language website la Repubblica Napoli, brothers Vincenzo and Giacomo Barbato noticed in 2012 that Apple had never secured the trademark for the name of its most prominent co-founder. They had spent years designing clothing products for other brand names, but they decided to begin the process of setting up their own clothing company after becoming fed up with producing products for others.
Upon discovering that the Steve Jobs trademark was free, they seized upon it as an opportunity and decided to use it for the clothing company they were in the process of setting up. That set the stage for a sort of David versus Goliath battle which handed Apple a very rare loss when it comes to trademark issues.
Apple sues over logo used with Steve Jobs trademark
The Verge suggests that Apple might have lost because it chose to go after the Steve Jobs trademark by taking issue with the logo the Italian company uses. The iPhone maker argued that the “J” looks too much like the Apple logo. The “J” looks like a bite has been taken out of it, and it’s topped with a leaf that’s similar to the one used on Apple’s logo. The court sided with the Italian brothers, however, saying that the design can’t be a rip-off of the iconic Apple logo because the letter “J” isn’t a fruit and can’t be eaten.
The two brothers plan to keep working on new products under the Steve Jobs trademark. They told Business Insider Italia that eventually, they want to begin shipping electronics. If or when they do start selling electronic devices, the issue of the Steve Jobs trademark could come up again in some way because they will be more directly competing with the Cupertino iDevice giant.
