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Behind Apple’s Aggressive Moves to Protect Its Trademark



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The company has opposed singer-songwriters, school districts and food blogs for trying to trademark names or logos featuring an apple — or a pear or pineapple. Ryan Mac reported from Los Angeles and Kellen Browning from San Francisco.March 11, 2022When Genevieve St. John started a sex-and-life coaching blog in 2019, she designed a logo for the business of a neon green and pink apple, which was cut open to resemble female genitalia.Not long after applying to register the logo with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that year, Ms. St. John received an unpleasant surprise. Her request had been challenged — by Apple.In a 246-page opposition filing, lawyers for the iPhone maker wrote that Ms. St. John’s logo was “likely to tarnish Apple’s reputation, which Apple has cultivated in part by endeavoring not to associate itself with overtly sexual or pornographic material.”Ms. St. John, 41, a human resources professional in Chandler, Ariz., was crestfallen. Without the money to hire a lawyer and take on the tech behemoth, she decided not to respond to Apple’s challenge. That paved the way for a default judgment in favor of the electronics giant.“I wasn’t even making money off it,” Ms. St. John said of her blog, which she has put on hiatus. “But it’s Apple, and I’m not going to argue with them because I don’t have a million dollars.”Ms. St. John is one of dozens of entrepreneurs, small businesses and corporations that Apple has gone after in recent years for applying to trademark names with the word “apple” or logos of stemmed fruit. Between 201 …

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