Apple wants the Swiss Fruit Alliance to replace the 111-year-old Apple LOGO

CTOnews.com, June 20 (Xinhua)-- Fruit Union Suisse, the 111-year-old Swiss Fruit Alliance, said Apple is trying to acquire all Apple-related intellectual property rights, according to Wired.

CTOnews.com attached here is the LOGO of the Swiss Fruit Union, which is a red apple with a white cross.

Jimmy Marie é thoz, chairman of the Swiss Fruit Union, said: "it's hard for us to agree with Apple, which goes completely beyond protecting the 'bitten apple' trademark. I think Apple-related styling is very common and should be free, and everyone can use it freely.

According to WIPO records, Apple has made similar requests to dozens of intellectual property institutions around the world, with varying degrees of success, and the authorities in Japan, Turkey, Israel and Armenia have acquiesced.

"Apple wants its intellectual property to be as universal as fruit, which illustrates the problems exposed by the rapid development of the global intellectual property industry, which encourages companies to be obsessed with competing for trademarks they don't really need," Wired said in a comment.

Apple submitted a registered trademark of a fruit of the same name to the Swiss intellectual property Office (IPI) in 2017, involving a black-and-white description of Granny Smith, a green apple variety.

The application covers a variety of categories such as electronic, digital and audiovisual consumer goods and hardware. As NewsBytes points out, IPI gives Apple the right to some of the goods it wants. It cites a legal principle that treats general images of ordinary goods as part of the public domain.