Earlier this month, Apple took legal action against a small U.S. company Prepear and its pear logo, challenging the latter’s trademark application, citing it resembled the iconic Apple logo.
A media firestorm ensued as the story spread on the interwebs, as Apple was accused of playing the bully in its legal action. Prepear started a change.org petition which has since exploded to nearly 200,000 signatures.
As for what’s next? Prepear shared an update on Monday, saying Apple is doubling down in its efforts to oppose the company’s trademark application—taking the fight to Canada.
According to Prepear, “Through discussions between our attorney and Apple’s legal team, we learned that not only would Apple be continuing their opposition to our logo, but worse, they had taken additional steps in preventing our logo from being registered as a trademark by filing an additional opposition against our trademark in Canada.”
“This will increase the cost of the defense of our logo, and is a clear sign that Apple is doubling down on their fight against all fruit,” added Prepear.
As the owners of the Super Healthy Kids website, the Prepear founders went on to say, “It would be easy to think that this is just lawyers being lawyers, and that the rest of Apple doesn’t agree with this sort of bullying behavior, so we reached out to Apple’s PR team sharing the petition and requested to discuss the situation, and received no response. Apple has also ignored the dozens of reporters who reached out to them for comment.”
Prepear says it believes Apple’s higher ups support the legal fight against the pear logo trademark.
“This is not just Apple’s lawyers being lawyers, it appears that the organization at Apple stands behind its lawyers. As is the case in all bullying, silence about the behavior of the bully is the same thing as support,” said Prepear.
Wouldn’t it be easier to change Prepear’s logo and make this all go away? The small company says it considered doing so, but decided they had “a moral obligation to take a stand against Apple that sends a message to big tech that you can’t bully small businesses without consequences.”
The company also cited high labour costs to edit and change their logo, while also noting the latter is the company’s brand. Prepear says they would also be unsure of what they could actually change their logo to, given how “Apple has been so aggressive in its opposition filings on other logos that it is hard to imagine a design that they wouldn’t object to.”
Prepear says their legal fight with Apple will cost them “tens of thousands of dollars,” and they have no plans to set up a GoFundMe or any other sort of fundraiser. Instead, they are asking for support through signatures on their change.org petition, plus asking readers to download and use their app.
“Teach your kids how to stand up to the injustices they see in the world, and show them by your example how you do it. The more people who stand up for what is right, the better future we will all have for our kids!”, concluded Prepear.
1822839 – Statement of Oppo… by iPhoneinCanada.ca on Scribd
Update August 20: Prepear has shared its opposition notice Apple filed in Canada, which you can read in the embedded document above.
