According to a recent report, it appears that Apple and Prepear have entered negotiations to settle a trademark dispute that Apple filed against the company.
The legal dispute between both companies began in August when Apple opposed a trademark application by the creators of the recipe and meal-planning app Prepear. Apple objected to the proposed Prepear logo trademark on claimed similarity to its own logo.
Apple and Prepear enter settlement negotiations over trademark dispute – Report
Though Apple has not dropped its suit, it appears a resolution to the dispute may be on its way, as filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board last week have requested that the trial proceedings be suspended for 30 days as both “parties are actively engaged in negotiations for the settlement of this matter.”
The founders of the meal-prepping app claim that Apple “has opposed the trademark application for our small business, Prepear, demanding that we change our obviously pear-shaped logo, used to represent our brand in the recipe management and meal planning business.”
In response to Apple’s objection, the company behind Prepear started a Change.org petition to get public support in order to protect its logo. So far, the petition has received over a quarter of a million signatures.
“Apple has been opposing small businesses with fruit-related logos by starting expensive legal action even when those logos don’t look anything like Apple’s logo, or aren’t in the same line of business as Apple at all,” the petition reads.
While we do not know what exactly led both parties to engage in negotiations, they have thirty days to come to an agreement. If an agreement is not reached in the allotted time period, both companies may not find a resolution for quite some time, with initial pretrial disclosures set to begin in March, main trial briefs beginning in October, and a potential request for an oral hearing not coming until December 2021.
Prepear has said that despite the legal dispute costing them thousands of dollars, they plan to continue the fight to protect small businesses:
“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. 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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