Chinese clothing brand sues Apple for stealing its logo for App Store
Apple, which has locked its horn with Samsung and Nokia previously on patent wars, is now in the fresh water of trouble for once again, and this time by the Chinese clothing brand Kon.
Kon has filed a case against the Cupertino giant for having a similar logo for their app store. Kon, according to China’s Wikipedia equivalent Baidu Baike, is a clothing brand founded in 2009 based on the Sex Pistol’s Anarchy in The UK. The triangle is supposed to be skeleton bones that symbolize power over death.
Apple changed its App Store logo way back in August from a paintbrush, pencil, and a ruler, to three sticks with rounded ends that overlap each other to form a triangle. Kon’s logo looks similar, but the ends are sharp rectangles.
The Chinese clothing brand says it owns the trademark to its logo and Apple’s new App Store logo used on iPhones and macOS is a violation of Chinese copyright law. Kon is demanding Apple publicly apologise and pay damages.
The Beijing’s People’s Court has accepted the case and hearing may start soon. As Chinese courts don’t upload every case seen, the Kon case is not currently listed on the court website. The judgement can come in over the next few weeks.
Apple has dealt with a lot of lawsuits over this past year against the likes of Qualcomm, Samsung, and Corephotonics. Last year, it lost the trademark for the word “iPhone” to a Chinese vendor of leather goods.