Trademark Travail: Apple vs bigger, snarkier Apple

Every year, right after April 1, there's a news story that you hope is just some stupid hangover from the usual festivities... but you fear it's not. This year, the tell-me-you-made-that-up moment comes to us from the legal beagles at Apple, who are suing New York's GreeNYC environmental program for alleged trademark infringement because the program -- a green program here in the Big Apple, remember -- uses an illustration of an apple. Next up, one assumes, every kids' alphabet book, singer Fiona Apple, one-eighth of the world's Pop-Tarts, the food category of pie, and the writers of the Book of Genesis. In addition, beloved grandchildren will now be required to be referred to as "the pomegranate of Grandma's eye."

The filing (PDF format) is a stunner -- did you know that Apple has three "flagship" stores in NYC (but apparently not a single %*#@*#$ dictionary in Cupertino)? Did you know that in the home of the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and Times Square, those three retail stores have garnered "unprecedented" tourist attention? On the whole, the incident has been met with mockery by folks in civilization (that means not you, Cupertino, you soulless office park), but there's a particular place in my heart for the Gawker commenter [note some language unsafe for the more delicate among us] who noted, "You never notice Linux going after the zoo or hockey teams in Pittsburgh, do you?" (There is also a place in my heart for the commenter who dismissed Steve Jobs as an "ice cold tranny mess," but I'm not going to spend my day explaining that to the Cupertinis.)