Invader Tim

Here’s one of those circular logic problems: why do lawyers exist? Because they decide they need to. I mean really, if there weren’t layers, there wouldn’t need to be lawyers. If you get a letter from a lawyer suing you, you need to get a lawyer to defend you. If there weren’t any lawyers, we’d all just fight our differences out with pointed sticks of some sort. Now doesn’t that seem more civilized? And a heaping helping less absurd.
Case in point: In the late ‘70s, two Steves, one Wozniak and one Jobs, had take some tedious time out from revolutionizing the computer industry to do some paper work (no doubt to hand in to lawyers) for starting a business. A deadline loomed. They needed a name for their company. Woz looked at the apple in his hand, and said, “Why not?” About 10 minutes before the deadline, too. I didn’t say it was an exciting story, but it is THE story about how apple computer got its name.
I love the Beatles, but if the Beatles have ever been “out” to society at large the late ‘70’s or early ‘80s would be the time. The shrill, pointless ‘60s were 7 years of heroine-haze ago, and the fab four resurgence brought on by the soul-dead yuppies trying to pretend they were still (or ever were) peaceful, idealistic hippies was still a ways off. The constituent members of the Beatles were doing solo stuff, and not particularly well by most accounts, and angrier, punky-er rock and synth driven test pattern stuff ruled the radio waves.
During that time, no one really thought much of the Beatles…much less their record label. But Apple Records, already in has-been limbo pretty much by then, sued for trade marky goodness. Here’s how it works: if you open a phone book, and look to the A section, you’ll probably see a company called “Apple-something-or-other” like Apple brake repair, Apple Dog Neutering, or Apple Legal services. And that’s fine. Trademark disputes can only be an issue if the consumer is potentially confused, whether intentionally, or just on accident. And Apple Records thought that consumers might confuse Apple Computer’s products with their wares. Picture this scenario:
Consumer 1: Hey, did you get Ringo Starr’s newest album?
Consumer 2: I sure did. It cost around $3,000, and I don’t think it’ll fit on my record player. Some weird album art…very high concept. Looks like a typewriter, man.
Consumer 1: Cool. What’s it called?
Consumer 2: I think “II e” or something.
What? It could happen. The dispute was settled, and the terms went like this: Apple computer could keep it’s name, as long as it never made anything that reproduced music or entered the music biz.
Well the first computers were capable of making squawks and beeps, but not music, so we’re cool.
Well, along came the Macintosh. (Spelled differently than the McIntosh variety of apple—Designer Jeff Raskin’s favorite type. Why was it spelled differently? Because there was already an audio component manufacturer with that name…see a pattern here?) Ok, so the Mac could belt out some slightly more sophisticated sounds. And it came included with an error tone that sounded eerily similar to a xylophone, and to some people, that’s music. Apple Records got the Apple computer team on the horn, and demanded an explanation. According to the Mac team, the sound was a simple alert tone that they named after the “Japanese word for absence of sound.” That sound’s name is “sosumi.” Say it slowly.
As Apple Records faded and Apple computers Rose, the Mac got more and more music-y. Not only could it play back music, it became a premiere tool for creating music. That got litigation. They dropped the “computer from their name when they branched out and made stuff besides computers. More litigation. And of course theirs the iTunes music store (which was briefly called “applemusic.com”) More litigation. Now that Michael Jackson owns the Beatles catalog, I imagine suing Apple is the only way Apple Records gets any income.
Apple gets sued for other stuff too, and not just by ex-record companies. All of their products have internal, secret names during development. One series of computers was named after people the Apple design team admired. Bear in mind, these names were not the final names bestowed upon the computers, just internal “working titles.” That didn’t stop astronomer, Carl Sagan from freaking out when he heard that Apple computer had an internal build named after him. The Apple team kindly renamed the computer to BHA. Butt Head Astronomer.
Some things are different. Apple DOES use the internal build names as final product names some times now, like the newest iteration of its operation system, OS X: Tiger. But some things are the same. They are getting sued for it.
Yep, Tiger Direct, a mail order computer parts company and purveyor of dirt-cheap electronic miscellany, is suing Apple over the name. Never mind that the previous OSes were labeled after other big kitties, Jaguar, and Panther. And nobody who cares about the difference will be confused by the similarity.
Man, lawyers, huh?