Apple sues small businesses with pear logo because “people can get confused”

Apparently, the tech giant Apple is against a startup with five employees using a pear logo, even if it offers something completely different. The company in question is called Prepare, an app for cooking recipes. Apple has filed a lawsuit because it claims that the pear resembles the brand’s iconic apple and can cause confusion among consumers.

Prepear founder Russell Monson turned to social networks for help with a Petition on Change.org to publicize the case and raise money for the battle against Apple. “Apple has opposed small businesses with fruit logos by taking costly lawsuits even when they don’t look like Apple at all, or aren’t part of the same line of business,” Monson writes in the petition. “Apple opposed the trademark application for our small business, Prepear, by requesting to change our obviously pear-shaped logo, which is used to represent our brand in the recipe management and meal planning industry. to attack us, Apple has opposed dozens of other trademark applications filed by small businesses with fruit-related logos. Many of these have been changed or abandoned. Most small businesses cannot afford the tens of thousands of dollars needed to fight Apple “.

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The statement continues: “We are a very small company with only five team members and the legal costs of our fight for the right of all small business owners to be able to develop their own logo without fear have already cost us many thousands of dollars. and the sad firing of one of the team members. We are defending ourselves from Apple not only to keep our logo, but to send the message to the big tech companies that bullying small ones has consequences. “

The comments in the petition are varied, but people seem very angry. “It doesn’t look like an apple at all,” she reads. “Apple, you don’t have pictures of the fruits of the world. Be a leader, not a bully, please.”

The petition has reached nearly 35,000 signatures at the time of this writing.