The Beatles’ record company Apple Corps re-entered battle with Apple Computer at London’s High Court on Wednesday, accusing it of breaching a trademark agreement by promoting music products.
The dispute centres on Apple Computer’s revolutionary iTunes online music store, which allows users of its iPod to download and save songs through the internet.
The rock’n’roll legends’ multimedia corporation is suing the United States firm over the use of the Apple name and logo in a dispute that goes as far back as the 1980s.
London-based Apple Corps claims the computer company is in breach of a 1991 agreement that forbade each side entering the other’s exclusive “field of use” of the Apple name.
The deal between the companies gave Apple Corps — owned by former Beatles Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the widows of bandmates John Lennon and George Harrison — the exclusive right to use “apple” marks for the record business, the firm’s lawyer Geoffrey Vos said.
The US company had exclusive rights to do so for the computer, telecommunications and data-processing industry.
The peace had held between the two firms until the iPod arrived. The agreement was arguably drawn up to cover CDs and tapes, well ahead of technological developments such as iTunes.
Apple is the market leader for music downloads, with about three million songs being downloaded each day from its iTunes service.
Vos told the court that calling the iPod download system a mere electronic device was a “perversion” of the constraints in the 1991 deal.
He claimed Apple founder Steve Jobs had said that downloading music from the internet was the same as buying a record nowadays.
Vos argued that the US firm had violated the deal by selling music online, adding that its stance that it used the apple mark only in connection with a delivery system was “plainly wrong”.
Vos said Apple had made 3,7-million tracks available worldwide and there had been one billion downloads through its iTunes website, where he said its logo was prominent.
The Apple Corps logo is a green Granny Smith apple, while the computer firm is represented by a multi-coloured striped apple with a bite taken out.
The Beatles’ company is seeking financial damages and court orders to stop Apple using the “apple” marks in connection with the iTunes website.
Judge Martin Mann admitted to possessing an Apple iPod at an interim hearing. — AFP