Apple, the company, has long made it known that it believes that only it can use an apple, the fruit, in a corporate logo. This rather incorrect belief has led the company down some rather silly trademark roads, including disputes with all kinds of companies in unrelated industries, as well as disputes with some political parties for some reason. It's all been delightfully insane and all led by Apple's insistence that it has trademark rights that are far more broad than is the reality.
But just when you think it can't get more absurd, Apple goes ahead and files an opposition and sends out cease and desist notices...over a German bicycle path. I fear some explanation may be necessary.
Apple recently objected to the logo of a new German cycling path in an appeal filed with the German Patent and Trademark Office, according to German outlets General-Anzeiger Bonn and Westdeutscher Rundfunk. Apple reportedly takes issue with the logo's green leaf and supposed "bitten" right side, attributes the company believes are too similar to its own logo.
The logo, registered with the German Patent and Trademark Office in 2018, was designed for a new cycling path named Apfelroute that is set to open in the Rhine-Voreifel region of Germany on May 19. Rhine-Voreifel Tourism has already used the logo on uniforms, bike racks, cycling maps, banners, signposts, and more.
So, a green leaf and a bitten right side of the logo sure do sound specific. Perhaps you're already conjuring some picture of the Apfelroute logo in your head, imagining there to be some reasonable impression possible of likeness. Maybe you're thinking, hey, no way would Apple's lawyers fire off these notices to a German bike path unless this was really egregious, right?
Here's the logos. You tell me.
Any sane viewing of those logos should not result in any confusion, plain and simple. And that's just on the logos, without any context. When you add into the equation that trademark laws generally protect specific marks within specific industries and, in this case, the two "competitors" are one of the largest consumer electronics companies in the world and a local German tourism organization for a bike path, then we can put this whole story flatly in the category of the absurd.
Yes, some will take issue with the specific shape and angle of the leaf on the top of Apfelroute's apple. But if that's the best you can do concerning to logos that are so plainly different, such complaints say more about you than they do the logos themselves.
