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8 October 2013Trademarks

German café owner wins trademark battle with Apple

A small café in the German city of Bonn has fought off a challenge from multi-national technology company Apple, over the use of a fruity trademark.

The café, Apfelkind (Apple Kid), was set-up by Christin Römer and acts allows parents to bring their children to play while they drink tea or coffee.

In 2011, it filed a trademark application with the German Patent and Trademark Office for a logo showing a red apple with a child’s face on it.

Römer was then approached by US-based Apple, which demanded that she withdrew the request in case the trademarked logo confused customers.

Römer said she only planned to sell branded items including mugs, key rings and carrier bags.

Apple offered a settlement to the dispute provided Römer did not venture into technology-related products.

However, the settlement, which Römer rejected, would also have barred her from talking about her correspondence with Apple.

A two-year legal correspondence ensued until Apple withdrew its objection last week.

“One might have thought twice about whether it was worth the effort given that the company Apfelkind was small, local and quite far away from electronics and online business,” Jens Matthes, partner at Allen & Overy LLP in Dusseldorf, told WIPR.

“However, this is always easy to say in retrospect – in reality, Apple receives a notification of the trademark application and can only guess about the size and further plans of the applicant.

“In cases of doubt, you are well advised to reach out to the applicant, in particular if the matter is about your famous, absolute core trademark.”

Matthes added that, given the very low similarity between Apple’s trademark showing a bitten Apple and the Apfelkind logo, it was questionable why Apple had pursued the application.

“The original trademark application should have suggested that this is not a typical free-rider: the application is clearly aimed at a restaurant or café franchise plus some food products, nothing related to electronics or online services,” Matthes said.

“Of course there is a starting point for doing the ordinary trademark infringement test: both marks show an apple. And then? Not much more. One would probably come to the result that the signs only show a very low similarity while the goods and services are significantly dissimilar, which means there is no likelihood of confusion.”

“At some point in time they [Apple] obviously realised that they don’t have a claim,” said Matthes.

“In addition to this, obviously, they had to fear negative publicity within parts of their target group. It is always bad if a company that markets itself and its products as a lifestyle statement, as creative etc… is being reported as oppressive, legalistic or otherwise acting as the Goliath against a David.”

Apfelkind could not be reached for comment.

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