Sam Oliver
The European Union's top court ruled Thursday that Apple's distinctive retail store layout is worthy of trademark protection under European law, allowing the company to enjoy the same legal cover on the old continent that it secured in the U.S. last year.
"From this the Court concludes that the representation of the layout of a retail store, by a design alone, without indicating the size or the proportions, may be registered as a trade mark for services," the European Court of Justice wrote in its decision. The court's directive was first noted by the Wall Street Journal.
Apple submitted its store design for protection to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2010, and the application was approved in January of 2013. Soon after, the company applied to extend that trademark to Europe and was rebuffed by the German patent office, which argued that such a trademark would not be valid under EU law.
German courts escalated a review of the law to the ECJ, which has the final say on interpretations of EU law.
Apple often cites is expansive retail empire as a major competitive advantage, and rivals — including heavyweights like Microsoft — have attempted to mimic the stores' design and layout, generally without success. Thursday's ruling comes as the iPhone maker is in the midst of a major expansion under new retail chief Angela Ahrendts, including what appears to be a new flagship store in a nearly 250-year-old building in the Scottish capital city of Edinburgh.
AppleInsider Staff
Malcolm Owen
Oliver Haslam
Andrew O'Hara
Wesley Hilliard
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
24 Comments
A win is a win. Good on Apple in this case.
That's a funny feeling. With my partners at the time, I opened an Apple Center (a similar concept to the Apple Store which Apple furnished with Bang Olufsen furniture and grey and white striped carpets) in Edinburgh in an equally old building except ours was on the Royal Mile. This was in the mid 1980s. We had a dedicated showroom area, training room and repair facility, we even had a image setter room for out-putting film from PageMaker and Illustrator etc.. It had an Italian style coffee bar upstairs over looking the Royal Mile where clients could sip coffee and chat with my sales staff. Here is one of the few photographs I still have, this inside the show room showing the furniture. [IMG ALT=""]http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/45609/width/350/height/700[/IMG]
That's a funny feeling. With my partners at the time, I opened an Apple Center (a similar concept to the Apple Store which Apple furnished with Bang Olufsen furniture and grey and white striped carpets) in Edinburgh in an equally old building except ours was on the Royal Mile. This was in the mid 1980s. We had a dedicated showroom area, training room and repair facility, we even had a image setter room for out-putting film from PageMaker and Illustrator etc.. It had an Italian style coffee bar upstairs over looking the Royal Mile where clients could sip coffee and chat with my sales staff. Here is one of the few photographs I still have, this inside the show room showing the furniture.
Sometimes I forget how much history and experience this forum has :) Cool to see this type of stuff. Looks like a IIci or cx and the lovable Mac Luggable.
[quote name="TheUnfetteredMind" url="/t/181302/apple-store-design-and-layout-can-be-trademarked-in-europe-court-rules#post_2562113"]Sometimes I forget how much history and experience this forum has :) Cool to see this type of stuff. Looks like a IIci or cx and the lovable Mac Luggable. [/quote] And I still look exactly the same too .. :rolleyes: It's a cx I think ... I'll blow up there image and look ... I wish I'd realized what a part of history all that was back then and taken more pictures. Heck before this place I had a another in England with 5 branches around the country selling Apple ][s, ///s and Lisa ... then Mac of course. I have only hand full of pictures from over 36 years of being totally involved with Apple. That really annoys the heck out of me now! That said my play room here in Florida is stacked with many Macs from over the years but sadly my Apple ][e, disk drives and monitor (all pristine in boxes) vanished from my dad's basement in Grange over Sands, Cumbria just after he died a few years back.
It's a cx I think ... I'll blow up there image and look ... I wish I'd realized what a part of history all that was back then and taken more pictures. Heck before this place I had a another in England with 5 branches around the country selling Apple ][s, ///s and Lisa ... then Mac of course. I have only hand full of pictures from over 36 years of being totally involved with Apple. That really annoys the heck out of me now! That said my play room here in Florida is stacked with many Macs from over the years but sadly my Apple ][e, disk drives and monitor (all pristine in boxes) vanished from my dad's basement in Grange over Sands, Cumbria just after he died a few years back.
I was wondering if that was you or not :) Certainly now with digital photography, we tend to have many more pictures of things. Back then with film, people tended to be much more selective.
That sucks about the ][e :(
Back on top (ha), I wonder how long Apple will themselves even stick to this store design. Will it be revised with Angela taking over?