Swiss fruit growers worried as Apple seeks trademark rights to actual apples

In a bizarre legal tussle, a 111-year-old fruit farming association is worried that it will have to change its logo because Apple is seeking trademark rights to pictures of apples.

The Fruit Union Suisse currently uses as its logo an image of a red apple with a white cross on the righthand side, in an echo of the Swiss flag, and has done for most of its long history. It’s worth noting that the apple in the logo has a plain stalk rather than a leaf, and does not have a bite taken out of the side, so the similarities with Apple’s famous logo are minimal; nor is there much chance that customers are likely to get the two organizations confused.

But the farming association, according to a news story by Wired U.K., believes this logo to be in peril as a result of aggressive trademarking activity by Apple, a company that moves in very different circles.

Apple has been attempting to “gain intellectual property rights over depictions of apples, the fruit” in Switzerland since 2017. Following a setback last fall, when the Swiss Institute of Intellectual Property granted the request only partially (citing the legal principle that “generic images of common goods” lie in the public domain), the company launched an appeal this spring. This is now moving through the courts, and the Fruit Union is concerned and baffled.

“We have a hard time understanding this, because it’s not like they’re trying to protect their bitten apple,” said organization director Jimmy Mariéthoz. “Their objective here is really to own the rights to an actual apple, which, for us, is something that is really almost universal… that should be free for everyone to use.”

Wired notes that Apple has made similar trademarking attempts around the world, with mixed results; authorities in Japan, Turkey, Israel, and Armenia, the site says, have caved in to the company’s demands. Others have held firm.

In theory, Fruit Union Suisse shouldn’t have to worry, thanks to another legal principle in Switzerland: “Anyone who can prove prior history of using a disputed sign has protection in a potential trademark dispute.” The farming association has been around for a lot longer than Apple, which might be a veteran by tech standards but wasn’t founded until 1976. But common sense is sometimes lacking in trademark disputes. Victoria ‘Posh Spice’ Beckham, after all, once pursued a case against a soccer club that was using the Posh nickname 40 years before she was born. Money talks, and the threat of financially ruinous legal action may be enough to intimidate the farmers into giving way.

“You know,” Mariéthoz added bitterly, “Apple didn’t invent apples. We have been around for 111 years. And I think apples have been around for a few thousand more.”