A lawyer for Apple Computer Inc. today defended the right of the company to use the apple logo on its iTunes Music Store and in a series of TV advertisements for the Web site, despite objections from the Beatles' Apple Corps Ltd. recording label.
Apple Corps is suing Apple Computer in London's High Court, claiming that the U.S.-based computer company has broken a 1991 agreement in which each agreed not to enter into the others' field of business.
The British company, started by the Beatles in 1968, argues that Apple Computer has infringed its territory by entering into the music business, and is seeking to force Apple Computer to drop its apple logo from the iTunes Music Store and pay unspecified damages."We say that Apple Computer has been using the Apple mark in connection with musical content," said Geoffrey Vos, a lawyer for Apple Corps, as he gave his closing arguments Wednesday. "It uses those marks on its music store site at the point of sale of the music content ... it signs artists on its site in just the way a recrd company would."
Anthony Grabiner, a lawyer for Aple Computer, said today that advrtisemets featuring U2, Eminem and Coldplay were entitled to display the apple logo bcause they were prmoting the iTunes store and its downoad services and not the music itself.
"Viewers aren't ignorant peole, but ... have significant unerstanding of what pple Computer does and the object of the exercise, accepted by people watching, was to get the benefit of the download," Grabiner said during his closing arguments in the case.
Source: Various
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