A five-person startup says Apple is 'bullying' it over its fruit-shaped logo

grapier@businessinsider.com (Graham Rapier)
·4 min read
prepear homepage
Prepear's website, showing its pear-shaped logo that Apple is fighting

Prepear

  • Apple is seeking to have a startup's logo patent dismissed over concerns it is too similar to its own.

  • Prepear, a five-person food blog, says its pear logo is "obviously" not an apple.

  • The company's fighting back in behalf of other small businesses it says have been similarly bullied.

  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Fruits can be confusing, if you ask Apple.

The tech giant is fighting a trademark filed by Prepear, a five-person food website, over its pear-shaped logo.

In a "notice of opposition" filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office, Apple said the recipe and meal planning firm said Prepear's logo "consists of a minimalistic fruit design with a right-angled leaf, which readily calls to mind Apple's famous Apple Logo and creates a similar commercial impression."

Russell Monson, Prepear's co-founder and COO, says this is just "bullying" over a logo the company first filed to patent in 2017.

"It is a very terrifying experience to be legally attacked by one of the largest companies in the world, even when we have clearly done nothing wrong, and we understand why most companies just give in and change their logos.," he said in a Change.org petition started in protest. "We feel a moral obligation to take a stand against Apple's aggressive legal action against small businesses and fight for the right to keep our logo."

That petition's now been signed by more than 71,000 people, a response that Monson told the BBC has left him "overwhelmed by how supportive people have been."

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

Natalie Monson, Russell's wife and co-founder, says the goal isn't to get anyone to stop buying Apple products — that would be near impossible, after all. Instead, the couple want to show an example to other small businesses they say have been similarly bullied.

"I feel a moral obligation to take a stand against Apple's aggressive legal action against small businesses and fight for the right to keep our logo," she wrote on Instagram. "We are defending ourselves against Apple not only to keep our logo, but to send a message to big tech companies that bullying small businesses has consequences."

 

 

 

 

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