Before iPhone dispute came the Mac trademark dispute!

by Alex Zaharov-Reutt

Sunday, 21 January 2007

According to an article at Wired Blogs, Steve Jobs had similar iPhone naming problems when the Mac was originally launched, needing a US $2 million payout to settle.

A fascinating article at Wired Blogs talks about how Steve Jobs has brought a product to market with another company’s trademark before – and it was with the original Mac.

Some detail on the story is contact in the biography of the former Apple CEO, John Sculley, called ‘Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple’ on page 208.

According to a January 24, 1985 report from the Associated Press: "Apple Computer Inc. will pay an undisclosed sum to Management and Computer Services Inc. to settle a trademark-infringement lawsuit, the companies said today. The software company sued Apple for using 'Mac' to describe items associated with its Macintosh personal computer. Management and Computer Services uses 'Macs' as a trademark."

The amount reported to have been paid was US $2m, which in today’s inflated money would be worth considerably more.

Read the full story with a range of comments at the original Wired Blogs entry linked above.{moscomment}

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