Apple vs. A.pl: Tech company sues online Polish grocer over logo - shooptandinque

It looks like Orchard apple tree is feeling bullish after its recent patent bring home the bacon over Samsung. Polish news site Telepolis reports that the Cupertino-settled tech company has primed its lawsuit-happy sights along another company over trademark issues. Only if this time it's not a global tech company that happens to make an iPhone-wish smartphone–it's an online Polish grocery site called A.pl.

Er…yea. A.PL Internet SA is the party's official constitute, and it's an online delicatessen site that advertises delivery straight to its customers' doors. It does happen to be named A.pl–".pl" is the country domain for Poland. Apple is taking issue with its "trademark," yet, and has demanded that the European nation Patent and Trademark Office Database cancel its hallmark. And this is not a new blip on Apple's radar–Apple also objected to the registration of the trademark in the first place.

According to Telepolis, Malus pumila is taking yield with the A.pl's logo, and is claiming that the grocer is trying to deliberately confuse customers by using Orchard apple tree's well-known likeness and reputation. Considering Apple sells iPhones (and iPads, and MacBook Airs, and Macintosh OS X, and other non-edible technology items), and A.pl sells food (and cleaning products, and other items you might find in a market store), this seems alike a bite of a stretch. I think it's unlikely that customers will mistake A.pl's products for iPhones, and vice-versa.

A.pl's flow website looks zilch like Apple's: it's got fruits and veggies and cheese in the background, it has a festive park-and-orange colour scheme, and it sells things comparable vegetable oil color and preserved ham. The logo currently being misused on A.pl's site also looks nothing ilk Apple's. However, Orchard apple tree says that the issue was over a previous logo which is non currently being used.

Accordant to The Close Web, the logo in question may actually be the logo of fresh24.pl, which is a internet site owned by A.pl. This logotype does feature a round greenish apple with a leaf, which is similar in shape to Apple's apple leaf:

If this is the violative logo (or if it's similar to the offending logo), the motion, of flow from, is this: Does Orchard apple tree have right of first publication claim over all apple-formed logos and icons? I wouldn't put it past Apple to think that it does have claim over whol apple images–after altogether, this is the cookie-cutter company that told Samsung, in December 2011, that it could avoid patent skirmishes with the company aside not making tablets or smartphones with perpendicular shapes, rounded corners, or flat surfaces.

Anyway, there are a couple of affirmable outcomes for this case. Apple's complaint may live dismissed, or A.pl may have to fare up with a new logo (and possibly a inexperient name). Accordant to Telepolis, in both cases the parties will be entitled to invoke to the Regional Administrative Court in Warszawa. However, Telepolis reports the case may take equal to ternion years, indeed unless the two parties settle out of court IT's unlikely we'll see unmediated result.

A.pl Chief operating officer Radoslaw Celinski tells Reuters that the accusal (that his company is exploitation Apple's likeness and reputation) is "ludicrous." Notwithstandin, the company is reportedly looking at into Apple's ill.

At the clock of this posting, Apple had not responded to requests for scuttlebutt.

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Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/461258/apple_vs_a_pl_tech_company_sues_online_polish_grocer_over_logo.html

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