Apple Settles Trademark Opposition With PrePear Recipe App After The Latter Makes A Barely Perceptible Change In Logo
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Last summer, we discussed Apple opposing the trademark application for recipe app PrePear. While the tech company and a company that attempts to promote healthy eating aren't competing with one another, Apple argued that PrePear's logo was deceptively similar to its own. Here they are, side by side.As we pointed out previously, it should be immediately obvious how dumb Apple's claims are. The two logos look nothing alike, have different color schemes and style types, and consist of totally different fruits. That PrePear has a pear in its logo and name only drives the point home further. Despite that, rather than backing down in shame, Apple expanded its attack to Canada, where it also opposed the trademark application there. PrePear had to lay off at least one of its handful of employees as a direct results of the costs associated with the opposition.Which probably makes it all the more irritating to find that this has all now been settled such that Apple's demands for action are so frustratingly insignificant so as to make everyone wonder what the hell the point of all this was to begin with.Six months later, the case is now settled, and it seems Apple didn’t actually have a pear-shaped problem after all — because Super Healthy Kids has agreed to change the shape of the leaf atop that pear, and Apple has agreed that’s good enough to let the trademark go forward. And here is the change that PrePear agreed to.You really do have to squint at the image to even make out what change was made, didn't you? The change is so minor that its only real use is in calling into question why Apple's lawyers pursued this at all. It's not as though this dispute wasn't painful for the PrePear folks. It was. There was cost, both in terms of money and its ability to retain its employees.So how insulting must it be for Apple's big ask... to be barely altering the shape of a pear leaf?
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posted at: 12:00am on 23-Feb-2021
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What Landing On Mars Again Can Teach Us, Again
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It seems I'm always writing about Section 230 or copyright or some sort of regulatory effort driven by antipathy toward technology. But one of my favorite posts I've ever written here is this one, "We Interrupt All The Hating On Technology To Remind Everyone We Just Landed On Mars." Given that we just landed on Mars again it seems a good time to revisit it, because it seems no less important today than it was in 2018 when I originally wrote it. Just as it seems no less important that we just landed on Mars again. In fact, it all may matter even more now.Today we find ourselves even more mired in a world full of technological nihilism. It has become a well-honed reflex: if it involves technology, it must be bad. And in the wake of this prevailing distrust we've developed a political culture that is, at best, indifferent to innovation if not often downright eager to stamp it out.It's a poisonous attitude that threatens to trap us in our currently imperfect world, with no way to solve our way out of our problems. But recognizing what an amazing achievement it was to successfully land on Mars can work as an antidote, in at least two important ways:First, it can remind us of what wonder feels like. To dream the most fantastic dreams, and then to go make those dreams happen. Mankind hasn't gazed at the stars in ambivalence; the heavens have been one of our greatest sources of inspiration throughout the ages. That we have now managed, for the first time in the history of human civilization, to put another planet within our grasp should not extinguish that wonder, with a glib "been there, done that" shrug. Rather, it is a cause for enormous celebration and should do nothing but inspire us to keep dreaming, next time even bigger.Because if there's one thing this landing teaches us, apart from the tangible fruits of our exploration, it is to believe in ourselves. Our failures and disappointments here on Earth are serious indeed. But what this success demonstrates is that we can overcome what was once thought impossible. It may take diligence, hard work, and faithful adherence to science. And our human imperfections can sometimes make it hard to manage these things.But landing on Mars reminds us that we can and provides us with an amazing example of how.
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posted at: 12:00am on 23-Feb-2021
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