James Delahunty
29 Mar 2006 4:43
Apple Corps was founded in 1968 to publish music by The Beatles and to sign new musicians. George Harrison found an advertisement for an Apple Computer in a computer magazine in 1980 and decided that it infringed Apple Corps' trademark. Apple Corps told Apple Computer to change its name if it wanted to continue producing music making machines and in 1991, Apple Computer agreed to stay out of the music business and paid a settlement of $26.5 million.
However, in 2003, Apple launched its music download service, iTunes. The company has so far sold over 1 billion tracks, but is the company breaking the agreement it made with Apple Corps? On Wednesday, the High Court in London will decide whether the agreement between both companies has been breached. The suit was filed in September 2003 by Apple Corps, and its over "the use by Apple Computer of the word 'Apple' and apple logos in conjunction with its new application for downloading pre-recorded music from the Internet".
Apple Computer doesn't see its new service as infringing any past agreements however. According to reports, the company claims that iTunes allows "data transmission" and that downloads are permitted in terms of the agreement as they are "data transfers". Whether the court will see eye to eye with that claim will be seen soon.
Source:
The Register