Apple and Prepear Negotiating a Settlement Over Disputed Pear Logo Trademark

Back in August, Apple made headlines for its efforts to oppose a trademark application by the creators of the recipe and meal-planning app Prepear, with Apple objecting to the proposed Prepear logo trademark based on claimed similarity to Apple's own logo.

Despite the fact that Prepear's logo depicts an outline of a pear, Apple claimed in its filing that Prepear's logo "consists of a minimalistic fruit design with a right-angled leaf, which readily calls to mind Apple's famous Apple Logo and creates a similar commercial impression."

Super Healthy Kids, the company behind Prepear, launched a petition in an attempt to persuade Apple to drop its opposition targeting a small business trying to protect a logo that appears quite dissimilar to Apple's logo, and the petition has garnered over 250,000 signatures so far.

While Apple has not dropped its opposition, it appears a resolution to the dispute may be coming fairly soon, as filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board last week have requested that the trial proceedings be suspended for 30 days as the "parties are actively engaged in negotiations for the settlement of this matter."

Despite the official 30-day pause, either side is free to resume the proceedings at any time and the proceedings will automatically resume on January 23 if there is no further word from the two parties.

Should a settlement not be reached, the dispute appears to be set to drag on for some time, with initial pretrial disclosures set to begin in March, main trial briefs beginning in October, and a potential request for an oral hearing not coming until December 2021.