Apple Picks New York's Green Campaign

Trademark law often has the feel of being a bit dodgy. Like companies are overprotective mothers who won’t let their child swing on the monkey bars at the park, or play football. It doesn’t help when Apple challenges New York City’s trademark application to use a stylized apple logo for the green living campaign. Telling NYC they can’t use an apple in some form for a logo is like telling Los Angeles they can’t use silicon implants as a logo.

Apple is claiming the “GreeNYC” logo resembles their own, but the NYC logo is a modified infinity symbol. I guess any curved apple design could be argued to mimic Apple’s, but saying that this could injure their reputation is slightly ludicrous. Besides, the city is the Big Apple. And our state was widely known for the apple orchards. The use of an apple logo is not a stretch here, and clearly no infringement was intended. Not only that, but I don’t think less of Apple Computer if they were associated with a green campaign.

The city has responded saying the claim has no merit. A spokesperson for the city told the AP the logo was “ "meant to invoke thoughts of upstate New York's bucolic rural areas, where apple orchards once delivered much of the nation's crop.”

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TAGS: apple, nyc, trademark, logo