Halfway through last year, the company Woolworths Supermarkets (situated around Australia and New Zealand) announced that it was going to revamp its logo, in addition to making some other changes, altering the entire corporate branding strategy. The company chose an "an abstract leaf symbol" as the new logo, hoping things would be fine... but unfortunately, they weren't, particularly for Apple, Inc.
AppleInsider has reported that the Cupertino-based company Apple, known mostly for the the iPod, the Mac, and the iPhone, believes Woolworths' logo is far too similar to its own, wanting it to be changed. Apple's had a history of legal battles with other companies over logo similarities, though it's expected for a company to want to defend its brand. Woolworths' branding change application apparently asked for "a blanket trademark extending even to electrical goods and technology," with a spokesperson for the company saying, "While we can't rule [computers, musical players, etc.] out, we haven't got any plans at the moment," perhaps triggering the legal actions.
Apple is planning to take the case to IP Australia, which is the federal agency that governs trademarks in the country (where Woolworths is the largest retail company, in addition to in New Zealand); although Apple has yet to publicly comment on the actions, something will no doubt pop up soon. We've included the two logos for you to compare, courtesy of AppleInsider.
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