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Fruit Grab

Bizarre business with Apple trying to secure IP protections over the depictions of the fruit. 

Apple has precedent in Switzerland. In 2010 the trillion-dollar company got a small Swiss grocers’ cooperative to enter into an out-of-court agreement declaring it would never add a bite mark to its logo—a bright red apple inside a shopping caddy—something which, according to the cooperative’s president at the time, was “never planned.”

Extending the logic, say a parent posted an image of their baby taking their very first bite of an apple on social media, they can expect to hear from Apple about it. God forbid, that image goes viral for whatever random reason that governs such events and some entrepreneurial type decides to start a line of merchandize themed on the bitten apple. 

For the Swiss apple growers, “millions” are at stake if they have to rebrand following a decision. “We’re not looking to compete with Apple; we have no intention of going into the same field as them,” Mariéthoz says, adding that one of the biggest gripes the 8,000-odd apple farmers he represents had with the attempted fruit grab was that, “you know, Apple didn’t invent apples … We have been around for 111 years. And I think apples have been around for a few thousand more.”

In the baby biting apple scenario, would be interesting if the baby could get sued for damages - biting the apple they were not supposed to. Maybe next thing to do is to ban the use of the word apple in any and all contexts, Seems like anything is possible these days



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