Sure, everyone rips off its products, but it appears US tech giant Apple is far more protective of its iconic logo.
According to reports on the website MacRumours, the trillion dollar tech company is set to sue a tiny health app over apparent similarities to its own pear logo.
Prepear is a US-based meal-planning app that lets users store and organise recipes and it relies on Apple’s mobile App Store to deliver its app.
According to reports, Apple claims the “minimalistic fruit design” of Prepear’s pear logo and its “right-angled leaf … readily calls to mind Apple’s famous Apple Logo and creates a similar commercial impression”.
Apple has apparently filed a notice of opposition before the US Patent and Trademark Office over the Prepear design claiming it is “likely to cause confusion, mistake or deception”.
It’s also claiming that its own Health app is very similar to what Prepear offers and that could create even more confusion with consumers.
Apple claims its Health app “provides a central repository for health and fitness data … one of the categories highlighted on Apple’s Health app is Nutrition” and “consumers readily associate the Apple Marks with medicine, health, and general wellness”.
Prepear was born from a food blog started by dietitian and mother of four Natalie Monson called Super Healthy Kids.
In an Instagram post (which you can read in full below), Monson said she felt a “moral obligation” to take a stand against Apple’s actions.
Monson alleges Apple had done a similar thing to “dozens of other small business fruit logo companies”.
She also alleges that Facebook changed an algorithm to her posts that subsequently halved her traffic.
Monson has also establised a Change.org petition claiming the likes of Apple deliberately bully small businesses.
It’s not the first time Apple has pursued legal action against another company for a similar-looking fruity logo. Last year, the company sent an objection letter to the patent office in Norway, arguing that the political party Fremskrittspartiet had an apple logo that closely resembled its own. It also objected to the logo of a cycling path in Germany that had a vaguely apple-like design.
