Apple not happy with food company's logo

Apple is accusing a Chinese food company of trademark infringement over its fruit-themed logo. The Sichuan Fangguo Food Co., Ltd. uses a round red logo with a stem and leaf. Apple claims this logo borrows conceptual elements, specifically the leaf, from its logo.

Fangguo's CEO Zhao Yi disagrees. Zhao does admit the logo is supposed to represent an Apple (it is a food services company that makes noodles and flour), but his logo has a distinct stem, Chinese characters and is a different shape than Apple's logo. Zhao also notes that the logo was originally designed in the 1980s and transferred to Zhao in 1997.

Apple wants the company to remove the leaf from its logo, but CEO Zhao refuses to cave in to Apple's demand saying "I'm Fangguo, it's a fruit, if the leaf is removed, it'll just look like a bomb." Thus far, Apple's Chinese legal team has not followed up on this request.

[Via MacObserver]

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Source: http://gochengdoo.com/en/blog/item/2397/apple_tells_chinese_…

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Apple is accusing a Chinese food company of trademark infringement over its fruit-themed logo. The Sichuan Fangguo Food Co., Ltd. uses...

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kgro

Coming up next: Apple is suing mother nature, requests to change the shape of the fruit.

September 08 2011 at 11:20 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Adrian von Gegerfelt

Looks more like LG

September 08 2011 at 6:10 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Nanda Fais

Wait... Something's wrong, why Apple sued LG's logo?

September 08 2011 at 5:33 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Macopotamus

LG only took their current name in 1995, so this logo predates that, if it was designed in the 1980s.

September 07 2011 at 6:31 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

neopod

Deffo looks more like a Bad Taiwanese Lucky Chemicals/Goldstar LG ripoff than a Apple Support (red)  logo

September 07 2011 at 3:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Purple

Apple is acting like a tyrant. Check out this link to see the trademark action that Apple brought against an Australian supermarket chain. Basically anything to do with a fruit, Apple are suing. This is how a company starts acting arrogantly when they go from minority player to big time. Arrogance. Strident behavior. Steve Jobs-like.

http://www.theage.com.au/business/apple-bites-over-woolworths-logo-20091005-ghzr.html

September 07 2011 at 3:16 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Juhani Lehtimaeki

When have you seen a red Apple logo? If you put the white one they actually use there's no resemblance left. It reminds me more of LG logo than anything else... oh wait.. does this mean that LG ripped off their logo from Apple?

I think they went too far now. How will this effect their Samsung lawsuits? Maybe the judges see that Apple is just randomly suing everyone.

September 07 2011 at 2:14 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to Juhani Lehtimaeki's comment

Billy Razzle

http://www.apple.com/support/products/

September 07 2011 at 2:15 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

macserv

This has nothing to do with arrogance, it's not random, it's not too far, and it's *not an option*. The legal folks at Apple have no choice in the matter if the company wishes to protect its property.

Apple is absolutely required to respond with full force in any case of possible infringement, with no exceptions. Letting a little guy get away with it is precedent for anyone to cite in the future.

September 07 2011 at 10:42 PM Report abuse Permalink +2 rate up rate down Reply

Jonathan Ober

I flipped the LG logo and the white parts line up perfectly...with the addition of the little 'serif' on the end only being different. It's def. a merge of the two. Oh well.

September 07 2011 at 1:57 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply