News

Two legendary companies in the music industry faced off in court Wednesday in a trademark battle over a piece of fruit.

Apple Corps Ltd., the Beatles' record company and guardian of the band's musical heritage and business interests, is suing Apple Computer Inc., claiming the company violated a 1991 agreement by entering the music business with its iTunes on-line store.

Geoffrey Vos, a lawyer representing Apple Corps, argued in Britain's High Court that characterizing the download system as an electronic device was a "perversion" of the constraints laid down in the agreement between the two companies.

Vos said Steve Jobs, co-founder and chief executive of Apple Computer, has said the downloading of music from the Internet was the same as buying an LP in the modern world.

Apple Computer's argument that it uses the apple mark only in connection with a delivery system was "plainly wrong," Vos said.

"What Apple Computers are not doing [when] using the Apple mark is selling software, delivery systems, or anything of the like. They are selling music," Vos said. "and that is in violation of the agreement."

The computer company's logo is a cartoonish apple with a neat bite out of the side; the record company is represented by a perfect, shiny green Granny Smith apple.

Vos said the computer company had been keen to use the Apple brand on its Music Store, and had offered $1-million (U.S.) to Apple Corps for the rights. That was rejected by Neil Aspinall, Apple Corps' managing director, Vos said.

Apple Corps — founded in 1968 and owned by surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, the widow of John Lennon and the estate of George Harrison — is seeking both an injunction to enforce the 1991 agreement and monetary damages for the alleged contract breach.

The 15-year-old agreement between the two Apples had ended a long-running trademark fight in which each agreed not to tread on the other's toes by entering into a "field of use" agreement.

Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple Computer said before the trial that "unfortunately, Apple and Apple Corps now have differing interpretations of this agreement and will need to ask a court to resolve this dispute."