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Forwarded-For: gj%psychiatry.sm.ucl.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk

[Excerpt from the Independent on Sunday - London 4 March 1990.]
[Apples Corps Ltd was a company set up by the Beatles, to handle Apple
Records c. 1967.]

[...]

In December 1981, Apple Corps Ltd and Apple Computer Inc drew up an
agreement that specified which products relating to which company
could carry the Apple name and logo. Its purpose was threefold: to
prevent trademark litigation, to help Apple Computer obtain trademark
registrations that it might not otherwise obtain, and to limit the use
of trademarks to provide protection for both parties.

It was agreed that Apple could use the the name for computers, and for
computer equipment such as printers, terminals and manuals. Apple
Corps Ltd would then continue to employ the name for its record label,
and could use it for all products relating to music, video and the
performing arts.

It was not a romantic agreement - romance was now in limited supply -
but is was  straightforward and amicable. For the next few years the
two companies met regularly. But in early 1987 Apple Computer applied
to the UK Trade Mark Registry to strike out several of Apple Corps's
trade marks - even where they directly applied to records and other
music-related products - on the grounds that they were no longer in
use. Then Apple Computer announced its intention to market a MIDI (a
type of musical synthesiser) bearing the its computer trademark and
apple logo, despite the fact that this was a contravention of its 1981
agreement with Apple Corps.

[...]