AppleApple has lost another legal battle this week as they failed to shut down a clothing company which uses the name of their late founder Steve Jobs.
It seems the giant tech company can’t catch a break, after finding out they are facing eight separate lawsuits for purposely slowing down their old iPhones – with one trying to sue them for an astonishing $999 billion – they now have to accept the fact that by law there’s a clothing brand called ‘Steve Jobs’.
The proverbial knife which twists in the wound is there’s not a thing they can do about it except watch two brothers from Italy profit off the name of their iconic co-founder.
Following years of legal battles, Vincenzo and Giacomo Barbato managed to beat Apple to earn the right to call their clothing company ‘Steve Jobs’.
Apple’s cease and desist started back in 2012 after the Barbato brothers realised the tech giants never put a trademark or a copyright on Steve Jobs’ name. They were well into the process of creating products for their company – which up until that point had no name – when they decided Steve Jobs would be the perfect name for their grassroots clothing company.
Of course, when you’re a company like Apple, and you wield the kind of influence they do in the market, they were never going to take it lying down. In fact, it was pretty obvious they were going to do everything within their power to make sure it wouldn’t happen.
I fratelli di #stevejobs non sanno nulla di tecnologia, ma sono furbi e sperano di farsi dare milioni di euro da #Applehttps://t.co/m5mERxhbqH
— Business Insider Ita (@BI_Italia) December 28, 2017
But for all their financial clout and influence they still lost the court battle. According to Italian newspaper la Repubblica Napoli their case broke down when the company specifically filed their main grievances against the brothers’ logo.
They pointed out the brother’s brand logo – which was a stylised ‘J’, with a bite taken out of the side and topped with a very Apple-like leaf – was too similar to their iconic logo. However, the courts ruled in favour of Vincenzo and Giacomo claiming the letter ‘J’ is not edible – ergo the bite could not be unlawfully plagiarising Apple’s own logo.
Since winning the case the brothers have stated that they plan to continue working on fashion products for the Steve Jobs brand. They also revealed in an interview with Business Insider Italia they hope to grow the brand even further by making electronic products.
PAWhile they have no specific plan yet when it comes to producing electronic goods, you can’t help but feel they’re trolling the tech giants. But who knows? When you’ve just won a legal battle against one of the most powerful technology firms on the face of this planet your confidence would be sky high. You’d literally say anything to rub salt in the wounds of your vanquished foes.
You never know, one day we may see a ‘Steve Jobs smartphone’ go up against the phone Steve Jobs created.
