Apple expands company brand to include “jewelry and watches”
Last June, Apple started registering trademarks on the name “iWatch” in a number of countries, but since then the company has strengthened its brands on the current company name “Apple” to also cover jewelry and the watches, MacRumors discovered.
By international agreement, trademarks are divided into 45 different classes to organize the types of goods and services registered for protection. Watches and other jewelry are in class 14, which focuses on precious metals / stones and products made from these materials. While some of Apple’s trademarks on the “Apple” name previously included certain Class 14 products, the company is now expanding and cleaning up its trademark applications in these areas. The move comes as the company is expected to introduce its “iWatch” smartwatch by the end of the year.
Among Apple’s recent extensions, there are Ecuador, where Apple filed a new trademark application in late December specifically to add protection in Class 14 for a long list of product types, including jewelry and watches. Google translation of a new category request for the “Apple” brand:
jewelry; watches; watches; goods of precious metal or coated therewith; cufflinks or cufflinks; key ring; timers; brooches of precious metal or coated therewith; ornaments of precious metal or coated therewith; tie pins of precious metal or coated therewith; tie clips or tie clips of precious metal or coated therewith; badges of precious metal or coated therewith; bracelets of precious metal or coated therewith; Necklaces of precious metal or coated therewith; medals of precious metal or coated therewith; short chains and ornaments of precious metal or coated therewith; buttons of precious metal or coated therewith; clip of precious metal or coated therewith; boxes of precious metal or coated therewith; decorations of precious metal or coated therewith; jewelry; sculptures and products of precious metals.
Applications in other countries have followed in recent months, including an almost identical filing in Mexico at the beginning of January which again focused only on class 14. Other extensions took place within the framework of larger deposits, as in Norway, where Apple in mid-February requested increased protection in seven different classes, including a sizeable list in Class 14. And last month that effort spilled over to UK, where Apple filed a request to expand its protections in more than a dozen classes, including class 14 for the first time.
While new apps to protect Apple’s use of its own name in jewelry and watches have emerged in a number of countries in recent months, the company has yet to take the plunge in all countries where it operates, notably in the United States where the “Apple” name is currently not covered at all by Class 14.