The Beatles’ Apple Corps and Apple Computer faced off in court on Wednesday in the first day of their trademark battle over the Apple logo and the iTunes Music Store. “Apple Computer can go into the recorded music business in any way they want. What they cannot do is use Apple (trade)marks to do it,” Apple Corps counsel Geoffrey Vos said in his opening presentation. Vos said the use of the Apple logo on the iTunes Music Store is a violation of a previous agreement.
In a courtroom with computers and at least one iPod, Vos demonstrated the iTunes Music Store experience by downloading a song and playing it for Justice Edward Mann. Vos said Apple’s logo is “intimately associated with the process” of buying a song. The Apple Corps lawyer also played a TV ad with Coldplay that featured the logo.
Vos said that Apple Computer’s argument that it uses the logo only in connection with a delivery system was “plainly wrong.” “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,
