Apple Music trademark denied, after tactical error by company

An application to register an Apple Music trademark has been denied in its entirety, after the Cupertino company tried to include protection of the name for live music performances …

Background

Apple had long faced a problem with trademarking the name of the company as whole. That’s because the Beatles had owned the trademark rights to their record company, Apple Corps, since 1968.

Apple eventually resolved this by purchasing the trademark in 2007. Since the original Beatles registration included the categories of “gramophone records featuring music” and “audio compact discs featuring music,” that appeared to put Apple in a strong position to apply for an additional trademark for Apple Music.

However, when applying for this trademark, the company tried to include live music performances, which led to an objection.

Charlie Bertini, a trumpet player who has used Apple Jazz branding for his concerts since 1985, objected, claiming that there would be confusion between the two trademarks when used for live performances.

The US Trademark Office tribunal agreed that the names were too similar to allow both, but found that Apple had prior right to the trademark.

However, Bertini appealed, and won. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that Apple could not “tack” its trademark rights for live performances to the Apple Corps trademark for sound recordings, a different category of goods.

Apple Music trademark denied

Apple last month petitioned the court for a re-hearing, stating that it now wanted to remove the category of live performances, so that it could continue with its application for the Apple Music trademark in the other categories.

However, IPWatchDog notes that the court has denied this request. This means that Apple not only loses its attempt to include live performances, but its entire application to trademark Apple Music is rejected.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today denied Apple, Inc.’s June request that the court rehear a decision that effectively canceled the tech company’s application to register the trademark APPLE MUSIC.

In other words, because it tried to apply for a category to which it was not entitled, the trademark application as a whole is rejected.

9to5Mac’s Take

With the benefit of hindsight, Apple should probably have dropped the live music category from the application as soon as this was challenged. It could then have continued the application process without that, and would almost certainly have been awarded the Apple Music trademark for everything else.

As it is, the company has lost any trademark protection at all.

However, this is largely academic. If anyone else were foolish enough to try to use the name Apple Music, there are other legal avenues the company can take, including a law against “passing off” – in which one company tries to give the impression it is associated with a different one. In practice, we’re not going to be seeing anyone else using the Apple Music name for anything, live performances or not.

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