Apple® Name Story

 

One day, when Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were working on the startup of their new little computer company, Jobs told his staff (apparently in some frustration), "If you don't come up with a name by 5 o'clock I am calling it Apple".

Of such stories legends are made, you might argue. But wait. This is the most expensive name in Silicon Valley history. Turns out there was another Apple out there.....like in Apple records owned by The Beatles of mega pop star fame. No problem, Apple computers agreed to only use the name for computers, and not music or anything related to it.

So one day, they announce the first Macintosh computer, and it has all these cool music and sound capabilities. And Apple records sue them to stop using the name. But of course, now they have big bucks and big lawyers so they fight this case all the way to the High Court in Britain. And lose - to the tune of $43 million!

But now they are a big company with serious PR professionals and so their Annual report that year reflected the fact this was actually a financial win for their team as they were expecting to pay $55million or some such amount. Besides which, they would claim this amount back from their insurance firm so shareholders should not worry about the cost and at least now they had clearly established rights to the name.

Fast forward to 2001, when their insurance company fights back. Now Apple has to not only pay The Beatles, but they have to pay all the legal costs of their insurance company's lawyers, because they lost again. And they still don't have exclusive rights to the name!

Motto: Professional naming checking in advance can literally save you a fortune.